The combination of seawalls and vegetation may be the key to Guyana's survival against rising water levels; however knowledge about the system behaviour and use of vegetation is inadequate. This paper comprises the first dataset since the 1970s along the Guyana coastline. Instruments were deployed to capture data on the water levels, waves and sediment locally. Data revealed the ways in which sediment is transported and deposited, as well as the wave damping of the mangrove–mudflat system.