Publication Date:
2022-05-26
Description:
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2009. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of IOP Publishing for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in
Environmental Research Letters 4 (2009): 044008, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/044008.
Description:
Rising sea level threatens existing coastal wetlands. Overall ecosystems could often survive by migrating
inland, if adjacent lands remained vacant. On the basis of 131 state and local land use plans, we estimate that
almost 60% of the land below 1 m along the US Atlantic coast is expected to be developed and thus unavailable
for the inland migration of wetlands. Less than 10% of the land below 1 m has been set aside for conservation.
Environmental regulators routinely grant permits for shore protection structures (which block wetland migration)
on the basis of a federal finding that these structures have no cumulative environmental impact. Our results
suggest that shore protection does have a cumulative impact. If sea level rise is taken into account, wetland
policies that previously seemed to comply with federal law probably violate the Clean Water Act.
Keywords:
Climate change
;
Adaptation
;
Land use planning
;
Sea-level rise
;
Wetland migration
;
Shore protection
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Preprint
Format:
application/pdf
