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As most artificial subtidal protection measures are permanent, future research should aim to quantify the ecological impacts of such anthropogenic structures whilst ensuring their engineering requirements with as little perturbation to the natural habitat as possible.
This approach is defined as ecological engineering (Browne and Chapman, 2011; Chapman and Underwood, 2011), and it addresses the commitments of the international Istaroxime with respect to resilient management of coastal habitats as defined, e.g., by the guidelines of the Oslo and Paris Conventions (OSPAR, 1999).
In terrestrial environments, habitat loss caused by anthropogenic alterations is one of the most important factors in species decline worldwide (Sih et al., 2000). However, in aquatic environments, limited research has addressed the effects of habitat alteration on shorelines (Chapman and Underwood, 2011).
In recent decades, studies have addressed the differences between natural substrata and coastal defence structures with respect to infaunal, epibiotic and invertebrate assemblages (Airoldi et al., 2005b; Ambrose and Anderson, 1990; Bacchiocchi and Airoldi, 2003; Browne and Chapman, 2011; Chapman, 2003; Martin et al., 2005; Wilding, 2006) as well as fish communities (Cenci et al., 2011; Clynick et al., 2008; Guidetti, 2004; Martin et al., 2005; Pizzolon et al., 2008; Wen et al., 2010).