Rısıng Tıde Anticipating the
Conway Alums Address the Coastal Impacts of Climate Change
“In just this one estuary, we’ve had millions of dollars of damage this winter. Coastlines have retreated ten feet, stairways are gone, plantings are destroyed. Much of the damage is not even known yet.” Seth Wilkinson ’99 is no stranger to storm surge impact. His firm, Wilkinson Ecological Design, is based in Orleans, Massachusetts, a mid-Cape Cod community whose summer residents have not yet returned. “Coastal property owners will have disappointing news when they return this summer,” he says. Coastal stabilization is a part of every project Wilkinson Ecological undertakes, as they anticipate a rise in sea levels and more frequent superstorms. A number of factors are linked to climate change, including what Seth calls a “slacking drift current” in the North Atlantic, due to supercooled water coming off the Greenland ice shelf. The drift current is like a ridgeline in the ocean that fans out over many miles as the greater volume of water slows the current. He has seen the impact of this increase in water volume in the protected estuaries of the Cape. “Even halophytic communities [those adapted to saline conditions] are struggling,” Seth reports. Vast areas of hightide bush, a succulent shrub in the aster family that grows in the saline soils of salt marshes and shorelines, are dying, he reports, either flooded out or just exposed to too much salt.
BY M O L LIE B ABI Z E
The salt marshes are leapfrogging—low salt marsh plants jumping upland of high marsh communities—in an effort to stay ahead of rising sea levels. All along the eastern seaboard, Conway alums are addressing the challenges of rising tides, increasingly powerful storms, and saltwater intrusion. Annie Cox ’10 organized a Coastal Training Program at the Wells Reserve in Maine, for public and private land use professionals and planners to learn about climate adaptation efforts for coastal communities in New Hampshire and Maine. Karen Dunn ’11 sits on the Southeast Advisory Board of the 10,000-member North Carolina Coastal Federation, a nonprofit conservation organization focused on protecting and restoring the North Carolina coast through education, advocacy, and habitat preservation and restoration. Dead and dying pine trees in coastal marshes exhibit the first effects of saltwater intrusion, she reports, and beach erosion is worsening. Karen believes the public education and volunteer efforts to restore oyster reefs and salt marshes are essential to protect North Carolina’s 300-mile coastline. Working at the intersection of the public and private sectors, Robbin Peach ’78 is the executive director of the Collaborative Institute for Oceans, Climate and Sustainability (CIOCS). From her office at the University of Massachusetts in Boston,
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