Living shorelines are an alternative to hard armoring that address bank erosion while promoting water quality and biodiversity. This study investigates habitat requirements for three organisms often utilized in living shorelines to stop erosion: mangroves, seagrasses, and oyster. While some habitat needs (light, temperature, salinity) are understood, habitat suitability related to the strength of moving water forces are not well known. For instance, at what point is the energy of moving water too strong for each organism to tolerate? We compared species distributions to modeled water energy and found that each organism has a different energy preference. Mangroves prefer when wave energy is not too high: when waves on the shoreline are larger than 8 cm for more than 20% of the time, they do not persist. Like mangroves, seagrasses also cannot live where water energy is too strong, but they also do not persist where energy is too low. Oysters can withstand high energy, but only if they are attached to something that will not erode. Oyster reefs, which usually form on sand, have a much lower tolerance for water energy than the individual oyster. Applying these habitat preferences to living shorelines will lead to more robust engineering designs.