About

Matthew A. Reidenbach is a Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia. He earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2004. His primary research area is environmental fluid dynamics, with an emphasis on physical-biological interactions in coastal environments. His current research activities include studying the effects of flow and turbulence on nutrient exchange in coral reefs, sediment transport in estuaries, chemical dispersion in the coastal ocean, and wave dynamics. Additionally, he investigates coastal resilience by exploring how ecosystems such as coral reefs, seagrasses, and oyster beds both alter and respond to wave and storm impacts along coastlines. This work has important implications for understanding economic losses and the vulnerability of coastal communities to storms, flooding, and sea level rise. Reidenbach also holds a courtesy faculty appointment within the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

Research topics

• Biology
• Environmental science
• Fishery
• Geography
• Oceanography
• Political Science
• Geology
• Genetics
• Ecology
• Physics
• Environmental resource management
• Acoustics
• Environmental planning
• Business
• Biochemistry
• Psychology
• Cell biology
• Public relations
• Meteorology

Selected publications

• Designing restored oyster reefs to enhance coastal protection benefits

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Oyster recruitment and growth increases wave attenuation by breakwaters

  Scientific Reports · 2025-11-29 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Coastal protection structures that incorporate reef-building organisms, such as oysters, are increasingly used to reduce wave energy, while also enhancing ecological function. However, it remains unclear how recruitment and growth of living organisms alters wave attenuation, and ultimately coastal protection, over time. Here, we present the first field-based quantification of changes in wave transformation over a living oyster breakwater following two seasons of recruitment. Using wave gauge deployments and oyster surveys at two sites, we observed a 10-15% increase in wave attenuation after oyster recruitment. The increase in wave attenuation was associated with oyster-induced increases in surface roughness and reductions in structural porosity. A standard breakwater transmission model was adapted using fitted ecological parameters, and oyster length emerged as an informative predictor of effective structural diameter. Our results highlight how ecological dynamics shape the evolving performance of nature-based coastal defenses and demonstrate a path toward adaptive, hybrid design frameworks.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Velocity and turbulence measurements around a dense aggregation of mussels from a flume experiment conducted July 2023

  Open MIND · 2025-08-18

  datasetSenior author

  The project investigates how the metabolic activity of dense aggregations of marine organisms alter the water chemistry of their interstitial spaces, and how these microscale alterations feedback to affect the organisms’ interactions in coastal ecosystems. The research evaluates whether corrosive chemical microclimates (such as low oxygen or low pH) are most extreme in low flow, high temperature conditions, especially for dense aggregations of mussels with large biomass and/or high respiration rates, and if they negatively impact mussel beds and the diverse biological communities they support. In order to address these questions, a flume experiment was conducted at Friday Harbor Laboratories where flow and chemical gradients were measured within and above a dense aggregation of mussels (Mytilus trossolus). Twenty profiles were taken over 5 days with 5 profiles taken for each of the four experimental flume speeds (0.6, 1.3, 2.5, 3.6 cm/s). Approximately 3-minute-long measurements were taken of velocity, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and pH every centimeter within the bed and two measurements were taken above the bed. Ambient conditions (dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH and conductivity) were also measured continuously using an array of HOBO loggers.

  DOI

• Performance Evaluation of Natural and Nature-Based Features for Coastal Protection and Co-Benefits

  Annual Review of Marine Science · 2025-08-04 · 1 citations

  reviewOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Built infrastructure, such as seawalls and levees, has long been used to reduce shoreline erosion and protect coastal properties from flood impacts. In contrast, natural and nature-based features (NNBF), including marshes, mangroves, oyster reefs, coral reefs, and seagrasses, offer not only coastal protection but also a range of valuable ecosystem services. There is no clear understanding of the capacity of either natural habitats or NNBF integrated with traditional engineered infrastructure to withstand extreme events, nor are there well-defined breakpoints at which these habitats fail to provide coastal protection. Evaluating existing NNBF strategies using a standardized set of metrics can help to assess their effectiveness to better inform design criteria. This review identifies a selection of NNBF projects with long-term monitoring programs and synthesizes the monitoring data to provide a literature-based performance assessment. It also explores the integration of NNBF with existing gray infrastructure to enhance overall effectiveness.

  PublisherDOI

• The turbulent soundscape of intertidal oyster reefs

  PLoS ONE · 2025-04-02 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Turbulence and sound are important cues for oyster reef larval recruitment. Numerous studies have found a relationship between turbulence intensity and swimming behaviors of marine larvae, while others have documented the importance of sounds in enhancing larval recruitment to oyster reefs. However, the relationship between turbulence and the reef soundscape is not well understood. In this study we made side-by-side acoustic Doppler velocimeter turbulence measurements and hydrophone soundscape recordings over 2 intertidal oyster reefs (1 natural and 1 restored) and 1 adjacent bare mudflat as a reference. Sound pressure levels (SPL) were similar across all three sites, although SPL > 2000 Hz was highest at the restored reef, likely due to its larger area that contained a greater number of sound-producing organisms. Flow noise (FN), defined as the mean of pressure fluctuations recorded by the hydrophone at f < 100 Hz, was significantly related to mean flow speed, turbulent kinetic energy, and turbulence dissipation rate (ε), agreeing with theoretical calculations for turbulence. Our results also show a similar relationship between ε and FN to what has been previously reported for ε vs. downward larval swimming velocity (wb), with both FN and wb demonstrating rapid growth at ε > 0.1 cm2 s-3. These results suggest that reef turbulence and sounds may attract oyster larvae in complementary and synergistic ways.

  PublisherDOI

• Spectral Wave Energy Dissipation by a Seagrass Meadow

  Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans · 2025-03-01 · 7 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Existing formulations for predicting wave dissipation by submerged canopies generally fall into three categories where (a) an empirical coefficient (energy dissipation factor) is attributed to the canopy ignoring its physical properties; (b) estimates of canopy drag forces based on a bulk drag coefficient and undisturbed velocities above the canopy are used to estimate dissipation; and (c) canopy flow theory is used to account for how modifications to in‐canopy flows influence canopy forces and associated dissipation. We measured rates of spectral wave dissipation across a dense seagrass meadow comprised of Posidonia australis in southwestern Australia, which also included high‐resolution flow measurements within and above the seagrass canopy. These observations were used to quantify the effectiveness of the three different approaches to predict observed rates of spectral wave dissipation. The results showed that conventional approaches that do not account for canopy flow modifications and/or seagrass flexibility tend to overestimate both bulk and frequency‐dependent wave dissipation. Conversely, approaches that consider frequency‐dependent flow attenuation in canopies were found to improve predictions of wave dissipation, particularly when also accounting for how the deflection of flexible seagrass blades induced by flow modifies the effective canopy height. The results show that the canopy flow velocities induced by short period wind waves were less attenuated than longer period swell, explaining the frequency dependency of rates of wave dissipation, with shorter period wave heights being more efficiently attenuated by the meadow.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Water chemistry and temperature measured within and above dense aggregations of mussels during a flume experiment conducted July 2023

  Open MIND · 2025-08-18

  datasetSenior author

  The project investigates how the metabolic activity of dense aggregations of marine organisms alter the water chemistry of their interstitial spaces, and how these microscale alterations feedback to affect the organisms’ interactions in coastal ecosystems. The research evaluates whether corrosive chemical microclimates (such as low oxygen or low pH) are most extreme in low flow, high temperature conditions, especially for dense aggregations of mussels with large biomass and/or high respiration rates, and if they negatively impact mussel beds and the diverse biological communities they support. In order to address these questions, a flume experiment was conducted at Friday Harbor Laboratories where flow and chemical gradients were measured within and above a dense aggregation of mussels (Mytilus trossolus). Twenty profiles were taken over five days with 5 profiles taken for each of the four experimental flume speeds (0.6, 1.3, 2.5, 3.6 cm/s). Approximately 3-minute-long measurements were taken of velocity, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and pH every centimeter within the bed and two measurements were taken above the bed. Ambient conditions (dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH and conductivity) were also measured continuously using an array of HOBO loggers.

  DOI

• The turbulent soundscape of intertidal oyster reefs

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2024

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Oceanography
  • Geology
  • Fishery

  . These results suggest that reef turbulence and sounds may attract oyster larvae in complementary and synergistic ways.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The turbulent soundscape of intertidal oyster reefs

  Authorea (Authorea) · 2024

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Oceanography
  • Fishery
  • Environmental science

  Turbulence and sound are important cues for oyster reef larval recruitment. Numerous studies have found a relationship between turbulence intensity and swimming behaviors of marine larvae, while others have documented the importance of sounds in enhan

  PublisherDOI

• Pulsatile Ventilation Flow in Polychaete Alitta succinea Burrows

  Journal of Marine Science and Engineering · 2024-06-21

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  In aquatic sediments, active ventilation of burrows is an important component of sediment metabolism, transporting solutes across the sediment–water interface. Within a burrow, the temporal and spatial structure of the flow velocity can dictate the flux of solutes across the burrow walls. However, it is difficult to measure the fine-scale flow dynamics within a burrow due to the opacity of marine sediments. Here, we allowed a nereid polychaete Alitta succinea, a cosmopolitan deposit feeder found in brackish to marine soft sediments, to construct burrows in a transparent, elastic sediment analog. This allowed the measurement of the temporal velocity structure of flow in the burrow using particle tracking velocimetry. We find that the flow within the burrow of this piston-pumping polychaete is unsteady and that oscillations in flow velocity are damped with distance along the tube. We also show that the flow velocity in a tube scales with worm size. Conversely, neither the unsteadiness of flow oscillations nor the stroke frequency of the worm pump scale with worm size.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: NCS-FO: A Computational Neuroscience Framework for Olfactory Scene Analysis within Complex Fluid Environments

  NSF · $249k · 2016–2021

• CAREER: Quantifying wave-driven mixing and mass transport dynamics within coastal ecosystems

  NSF · $531k · 2012–2021

• IDR: Olfactory processing of flow and odor structure within a turbulent plume

  NSF · $576k · 2009–2014

Frequent coauthors

• Jeffrey R. Koseff

  Mechanics' Institute

  15 shared

• Amatzia Genin

  Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat

  14 shared

• Stephen G. Monismith

  Stanford University

  14 shared

• M. A. R. Koehl

  Santa Fe Institute

  13 shared

• Karen J. McGlathery

  University of Virginia

  11 shared

• Gitai Yahel

  Ruppin Academic Center

  10 shared

• Michael L. Pace

  University of Virginia

  10 shared

• Elizabeth A. K. Murphy

  University of Virginia

  9 shared