Sediment input and maintenance of tidal habitat: Sediment is needed for beach building and to maintain shellfish and eelgrass beds in the future. Already there is a problem in maintaining beaches in some areas, and sufficient input of sediment could become even more critical as beach building is needed to allow for shoreward migration of those habitats. Shellfish and eelgrass beds, especially those in periodically exposed tidal areas, could become permanently inundated with sea level rise. To maintain proper tidal elevations for shellfish habitat would require raising them to keep pace with the rise in sea level. Increasing natural inputs of sediment from feeder bluffs is especially critical. Input from some of these areas has been cut off through bank protection and stabilization works. Proper regulation of such feeder bluff areas to continue, or even increase, sediment inputs should be explored. Another potential approach is to use fill removed from other areas as sediment inputs to maintain tidal habitat where needed. This could be done in a number of ways and may be very dependent on the location. Periodic additions of thin layers of material to beaches or shellfish beds from barges may be one approach. Another, where appropriate, may be a major beach nourishment project, adding larger amounts of sand to a given beach area and allowing natural hydraulic forces to move it within the system.