Nueces Bay Marsh Restoration Project Wins ASBPA Best Restored Shores Award
HDR’s Nueces Bay Marsh Restoration Project earned a 2025 Best Restored Shores Award from the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) — an annual honor for projects that enhance shoreline resiliency by addressing environmental degradation, storm impacts, climate change and sea level rise.
The project addressed a shrinking intertidal salt marsh area between Nueces Bay and Corpus Christi Bay. Transportation construction throughout the past century, including the Portland causeway, significantly altered water exchange through the system, resulting in a loss of 180 acres of marsh complex. Erosion and relative sea level rise further exacerbated the issue, accounting for an additional 160 acres of loss.
In response, the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program selected HDR to develop a plan for the reintroduction of intertidal marsh. The team established an area of 148 acres as the working site and developed several alternatives to accommodate funding availability and varying construction techniques.
In the project's first phase, the team constructed irregular terraces and berms to create 70 acres of marsh complex. Phase two included the construction of hydraulically placed marsh features. Lastly, phase three consisted of armoring the protective outer berm to provide shoreline protection and oyster habitat.
HDR served as the lead for all permitting, design, agency coordination, surveying, habitat surveys and construction administration.
Nueces Bay joins the McFaddin National Wildlife Refuge Beach and Dune Ridge Restoration Project, which was awarded a 2025 Best Restored Beaches Award, as HDR’s second ASBPA-recognized project this year.
This is the fourth consecutive year an HDR project has been honored with this award, following recognition of the Dollar Bay Marsh Restoration Project in 2024, the Lake Pontchartrain Shoreline Protection Project in 2023 and the Galveston Island State Park Marsh Restoration and Protection Project in 2022.
