RESILIENT COASTS FOR SALMON SPOTLIGHT COMMUNITIES
Downtown Victoria and Esquimalt
Downtown Victoria and Esquimalt are highly urbanized neighborhoods located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. More than a century of development in Victoria Harbour has transformed virtually all of its shorelines, replacing natural features with seawalls, docks, and other waterfront structures that support the region’s bustling port operations and tourism. Esquimalt Harbour retains only a few patches of natural shoreline, including intertidal mudflats and tidal channels.
For the purposes of the Resilient Coasts for Salmon initiative, the Downtown Victoria / Esquimalt study area covers 54 km of marine shoreline.
Downtown Victoria and Esquimalt lie within the traditional territory of the Lekwungen-speaking, including the xʷsepsəm (Esquimalt) and lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees) Nations, and the WSÁNEĆ peoples.
Key Findings
Shoreline Modifications
Man-made structures like seawalls and riprap, often built to protect shoreline infrastructure, can actually exacerbate erosion by redirecting wave energy to nearby areas. These modifications also remove key intertidal habitats and food sources essential for the growth and survival of juvenile salmon and forage fish. By stripping away the natural complexity of coastal ecosystems, shoreline modifications reduce their capacity to support biodiversity and adapt to rising sea levels.
Extent of shoreline modification
As of 2025, approximately 25.3km of Downtown Victoria and Esquimalt’s shoreline has been modified, while 29km remains natural (FN reserves 1935m removed). This indicates that roughly 46.6% of the community’s shoreline is classified as modified – Figure 1.
Figure 1. Coastal modifications (shown in blue) with the extent of data collection outlined by red dashes.
Most common shoreline modification types
The most common modification types were other (45.6%), seawalls/bulkheads (29.2%), and jetty, pier or breakwater (8.9%) – see Figure 2. The other category indicates that the feature did not fit in to any modification type. See the comments section for each feature for details about the feature noted by the recorder. For the downtown Victoria and Esquimalt shorelines, features marked as ‘other’ included vehicle and pedestrian bridge supports, patios, industrial yards, and yards, docks and buildings associated with Canadian Armed Forces.
Figure 2. The percentage of modified shoreline by modification type.
Most common materials used in shoreline modifications
The materials most commonly used for shoreline modification were concrete (46.1%), rock (31.4%), and unknown/undefined (13.5%) – see Table 1. The unknown/undefined category indicates that the recorder was not able to determine the material that was used, due to issues with image clarity or obstruction, or in cases when a mix of materials were used.
Table 1. The percentage of modifications, based on the type of material used in the modifications.
| Material | Percentage of Modifications |
| Concrete | 46.1 |
| Rock | 31.4 |
| Unknown/Undefined | 13.5 |
| Wood/Cresote Wood | 5.8 |
| Metal | 1.8 |
| Masonry | 1.4 |
Overwater Structures
Overwater structures, like docks and piers, cast heavy shade that degrades nearshore habitat. Juvenile salmon avoid these shaded areas, which alters their natural foraging and migration patterns by forcing them into deeper waters. There, they expend more energy and face greater predation risk. The reduced light also limits the growth of essential habitats like eelgrass and algae, along with the diverse communities they support.
Number of overwater structures total and by type
As of 2025, the total number of overwater structures in Downtown Victoria and Esquimalt is 339, consisting primarily of docks (223; including 219 residential docks, 3 docks associated with public boat ramps and 1 abandoned dock), industrial overwater structures (37), and piers/boardwalks and wharfs (34) – see Figure 3. There are 14 small marinas, and 3 large marinas, which often include creosote pilings.
Figure 3. The extent of overwater structures within Downtown Victoria and Esquimalt.
Log Accumulation
While logs are a natural part of coastal ecosystems, the escape of modified logs from log booms is leading to excessive accumulation. These logs can scour beaches, altering sediment composition and smothering nearshore vegetation. Unlike natural logs, modified logs are stripped of root balls and branches, making them unstable and prone to rolling across critical habitats that juvenile salmon and forage fish rely on for growth, food, and shelter.
For the results below, about 58.9% (33.1km) of the shoreline was not digitized for log accumulation either due to lack of shoreline imagery or it being First Nation reserve land.
Extent of log accumulation
Overall, the accumulation of logs on the shorelines of downtown Victoria and Esquimalt was minimal. Of the total shoreline, 0.8% (455 m) was found to have an extreme (>89%) accumulation of logs, with another 1.9% (1,020 m) with high accumulations (50 to 89% coverage), and 2.1% (1,156 m) having moderate levels (20% to 49%) of the beach covered by logs – see Table 2. It should be noted that the moderate log accumulation category also represents a significant coverage of logs – whereby 20-49% log coverage on a given beach could negatively impact shoreline habitat. Qualitatively, one reason for this lower presence of logs in this region could be the relatively high proportion of modified shorelines. Where the shorelines are armoured with hard vertical surfaces, there is virtually no shorelines for the logs for accumulate upon.
Table 2. The length of shoreline (in percentage and metres) by category of log accumulation.
| Log Accumulation | Percentage of Shoreline | Metres |
| Extreme (>89%) | 0.8 | 455 |
| High (50 to 89%) | 1.8 | 1,020 |
| Moderate (20 to 49%) | 2.1 | 1,156 |
| Low/None (<20%) | 36.4 | 20,489 |
| Unknown | 58.9 | 33,110 |
Mobility of Logs
The mobility of logs on the shoreline is unknown for 58.9% of the shoreline. Where mobility was determined, it was found that 36.2% of the shoreline had only mobile logs present, while an additional 4.6% of the shoreline had both mobile and anchored logs present.
To access and download the Resilient Coasts for Salmon layers for Downtown Victoria and Esquimalt, click here.
