Jumbile Cove Restoration Project, West Bay, Galveston, Texas

The restoration site is located in Jumbile (Jumbilee) Cove, one of several small embayments on the bay side of Galveston Island, Texas. Past land surface subsidence (Morton and Paine, 1990) and erosion from severe winter storms have caused significant wetland loss in the Jumbile Cove project area and adjacent marshes dominated by Spartina alterniflora. A review of aerial photographs from 1930 to 1995 show the disappearance and shrinkage of shoreline reef berms, vegetated land spits, and other emergent shoreline features in addition to formerly protected intertidal marshes. Small isolated lagoons between land spits, small bayous, and tidal ponds, many of which were formerly vegetated with seagrasses, have become seasonally turbid open embayments devoid of vegetation.