It's hard to visualize a sea level rise of 2 feet by 2100, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected last year.
Easier to envision are the potential impacts of sea level rise on coastal areas, such as residential and commercial structures and infrastructure becoming more vulnerable to flooding and storm damage, existing seawalls and revetments that were designed for historically lower water levels losing their effectiveness, and beaches and wetlands becoming more vulnerable to erosion.
Even more seriously, relative sea level rise resulting from climate change could compromise drinking water and displace coastal populations.
While scientific certainties are slow in coming, Rhode Island and other states are moving forward now with policies and planning to help make their coastal areas more resilient to sea level rise and other natural hazards.
The cover story of this edition of Coastal Services looks at Rhode Island coastal resource managers' efforts to prepare for 3 to 5 feet of sea level rise, including working with the legislature to amend the state building codes and developing related coastal regulations to explicitly address sea level rise and climate change.
As part of the regulatory creation process, Rhode Island Sea Grant worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management to create a summary of sea level rise initiatives of coastal programs across the nation—a document that could be of value to every coastal state. (To view this document, point your browser to http://seagrant.gso.uri.edu/ccd/slr/SLR_policies_summary_Mar6_final.pdf.)
In this edition, you can read about North Carolina coastal managers' efforts to develop criteria for the sand placed on beaches during the nourishment process—that state's only viable tool to address erosion issues.
We also feature an article on Ohio's Watershed Coordinator Grant Program, which provides funding and support for local governments, nonprofits, and other organizations to hire a staff person to develop and implement watershed action plans. Their plans include 6217 Coastal Nonpoint Program management measures, despite federal funding fluctuations.
As always, we hope you find all the articles in this edition interesting and informative.
-- Margaret A. Davidson
