• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Departments
    • Bioengineering
    • Civil and Environmental Engineering
    • Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
    • Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
    • Materials Science and Engineering
    • Mechanical Engineering
    • Nuclear Engineering
    • Aerospace program
    • Engineering Science program
  • News
    • Berkeley Engineer magazine
    • Social media
    • News videos
    • News digest (email)
    • Press kit
  • Events
    • Events calendar
    • Commencement
    • Homecoming
    • Cal Day
    • Space reservations
    • View from the Top
    • Kuh Lecture Series
    • Minner Lecture
  • College directory
  • For staff & faculty
Berkeley Engineering

Educating leaders. Creating knowledge. Serving society.

  • About
    • Facts & figures
    • Rankings
    • Mission & values
    • Equity & inclusion
    • Voices of Berkeley Engineering
    • Leadership team
    • Milestones
    • Buildings & facilities
    • Maps
  • Admissions
    • Undergraduate admissions
    • Graduate admissions
    • New students
    • Visit
    • Maps
    • Admissions events
    • K-12 outreach
  • Academics
    • Undergraduate programs
    • Majors & minors
    • Undergraduate Guide
    • Graduate programs
    • Graduate Guide
    • Innovation & entrepreneurship
    • Kresge Engineering Library
    • International programs
    • Executive education
  • Students
    • New students
    • Advising & counseling
    • ESS programs
    • CAEE academic support
    • Student life
    • Wellness & inclusion
    • Undergraduate Guide
    • > Degree requirements
    • > Policies & procedures
    • Forms & petitions
    • Resources
  • Research & faculty
    • Centers & institutes
    • Undergrad research
    • Faculty
    • Sustainability and resiliency
  • Connect
    • Alumni
    • Industry
    • Give
    • Stay in touch
Home > News > Restoring tidal marshlands
Madeline Foster-Martinez at the marsh organ she built at Richmond Field Station

Restoring tidal marshlands

Spring 2016 Berkeley Engineer cover
May 1, 2016
This article appeared in Berkeley Engineer magazine, Spring 2016
  • In this issue

    Features

    Life with machine

    Rising seas

    Thermoelectrics

    Responsible robotics

    Dean’s word

    Upfront

    • Grow your own
    • Learning to levitate
    • Affordable and lightweight suitX honored
    • Restoring tidal marshlands
    • Election data Q+A
    • From waves to electricity
    • Kuh lecture: Broadening participation in STEM
    • Comments

    Breakthroughs

    • Let them see you sweat
    • Say cheese
    • Fingerprint scanner
    • Cool composites
    • Making monolayers work

    Alumni notes

    • Build Change founder addresses CEE Academy Class of 2015
    • Alumni inducted into national academies
    • The backup generator
    • Farewell

    Download this issue

  • Past issues

Diagram of two-tiered march organ, built of PVC tubes packed with different materials and planted with native cordgrassIllustration courtesy Madeline Foster-MartinezA decade after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Madeline Foster-Martinez, a civil and environmental engineering doctoral student and Louisiana native, is investigating how to use biosolids to make tidal wetlands less vulnerable to storm surges. Dredging spoils are currently used to shore up marshes, but they are largely sand. Biosolids — treated sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plants — could add necessary nutrients to strengthen marshlands and better protect coastal regions.

“Marshes are just incredible — not only do they clean out pollutants, but they also sequester carbon, attenuate storm surge and provide habitat and food,” she says. “They do it all.”

Read more: Building an organ in the marsh

Topics: Sustainability & environment, Civil engineering, Devices & inventions, Research
  • Contact
  • Give
  • Privacy
  • UC Berkeley
  • Accessibility
  • Nondiscrimination
  • instagram
  • X logo
  • linkedin
  • facebook
  • youtube
  • bluesky
© 2025 UC Regents