A concrete home for marine micro inhabitants

In the last decades, the prevalence of artificial marine structures along natural shorelines has increased significantly. In some parts of the world, more than half of the available natural shoreline has been covered by these structures. Epibiotic diversity has been shown to decrease significantly on submerged artificial structures due to the reduced environmental heterogeneity of artificial environments. Natural rocky shores provide microhabitants through their rough surfaces, pits, rock pools and crevices. In contrast, modern building materials typically fail to provide many of these features. The ecological value of artificial coastal infrastructure could be increased through careful design of pre–fabricated ecological engineering units. Material selection is a crucial parameter in the design of these units. Reinforced concrete plays an important role in the design process due to its ease of production, relatively low cost and its suitability for mass construction. To maximise the potential of concrete to support biodiversity and natural capital, binder composition, aggregate type, and texture are considered to be important parameters. To investigate these parameters, an experimental programme has been developed which is focusing on a number of different concrete designs. Key engineering parameters, such as strength, chloride diffusion coefficient, and their ecological colonisation performance are evaluated.