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The bayside of Fire Island is sediment starved due to human-induced interuptions to natural sediment processes like overwash deposition and longshore transport.

The area of the Sailors Haven Marina and the Sunken Forest is an erosion hotspot on the bayside of Fire Island.

The Sunken Forest faces several threats, including soil erosion and saltwater intrusion caused by storm surges and wind-driven bay waves.

Multi-spectral surveys, conducted using our Wingtra UAV and RTK GNSS revievers, help us map and track landcover changes and erosion over time.

A computational model, developed using CMS-Flow, CMS-Wave, and ADCIRC, provides insights on overall bay dynamics and enables testing of potential interventions.

Ideas for natural infrastructure interventions to reduce bayside erosion at Sailors Haven and the Sunken Forest were sketched at a Tidelands Workshop in November of 2025.

Fire Island Erosion Control

As part of Tidelands, the EMLab began collaborating with the National Park Service at Fire Island National Seashore on the development of bayside erosion control measures in the spring of 2025. The work has focused on the area around the park’s public Sailors Haven Marina and the adjacent Sunken Forest, an ecologically-rare and vulnerable maritime holly forest. Over the past several decades, a significant amount of parkland has erroded in the area due to bay waves.

Our research team is using multi-spectral surveys and computation hydrodynamic models to better understand the area’s vulnerabilities and opportunities, which inform the development of natural infrastructure innovations.

Led By: Sean Burkholder and Keith VanDerSys Team: Lucy Salwen

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Fire Island Erosion Control

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