The goal of a resilient marsh restoration project is to create wetland habitat in degraded coastal marsh regions, in an effort to maximize the ecological benefits for the duration of the project’s design life.  Marsh restoration projects are nature-based solutions, which typically rely on nearshore, mixed sediment (sand, slit, and clay) borrow sources for the construction of the proposed marsh restoration project features. These projects are typically implemented by constructing a containment dike template, hydraulically dredging material from a proposed borrow area/navigation channel, providing a designated dredge pipeline corridor for material conveyance, and pumping the dredge slurry to the designated marsh restoration areas/beneficial use site.

The coastal landscape of the Gulf Coast Region consists of bayous, canals, and shallow bays, along with coastal marsh and soft alluvium soils.  This variable deltaic combination provides challenging soil conditions for marsh restoration implementation. The use of dredged, fine-grained (clay and slit) sediments for marsh restoration borrow is often viewed as unsuitable fill material due to inconsistent soil behavior during construction. However, marsh restoration projects have been successfully designed and constructed in the Gulf Coast Region using fine-grained sediments by incorporating current  design standards of practice for geotechnical investigations and design. These engineering protocol are required to estimate both the short-term and the long-term behavior of the fine-grained dredged material, which can reduce uncertainty and risks for the project, thus providing an effective borrow material for marsh restoration projects in the Gulf Coast Region.