Does your community have a lake or multiple lakes? According to Sherry Boas of the Orlando Sentinel, “Florida contains more than 30,000 lakes that cover a little more than 3 million acres of land.” These bodies of water are everywhere, including many South Florida neighborhoods. Many communities in South Florida feature these beautiful lakes to enhance the appearance of the neighborhood and offer recreational opportunities for the residents. However, the erosion of these lakes and their shoreline is a recurring problem and is inevitable.
There are many factors that cause lake bank erosion, including:
- Continuous change in water elevation due to the change of seasons
- Strong winds that cause waves that damage the shoreline
- Stormwater runoff that causes damage due to improper draining practices
- Fish, such as the armored catfish, that burrow into the lake banks, causing them to collapse
There are many other ways a lake’s shoreline and bank can erode. Nevertheless, there are solutions that can restore and protect your lakes like:
- Littoral shelf planting - the planting of native aquatic vegetation along the shoreline that helps reduce and even prevent erosion from happening in the future
- Installing riprap - a combination of rock and other material used to armor and protect the shoreline from erosion; riprap can help aid in protecting the shoreline from any future erosion
- Click here to see the full list of solutions and a case study on Lake Restoration
Have you experienced lake bank or shoreline erosion first hand? How did you or your community fix the problem? Let us know in our comment section below.