Marsh Migration, Climate Change, and Coastal Resilience: Human Dimensions Considerations for a Fair Path Forward
- PDF / 1,215,849 Bytes
- 14 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 39 Downloads / 285 Views
MARSH RESILIENCE SUMMIT
Marsh Migration, Climate Change, and Coastal Resilience: Human Dimensions Considerations for a Fair Path Forward Elizabeth R. Van Dolah 1
&
Christine D. Miller Hesed 1 & Michael J. Paolisso 1
Received: 23 October 2019 / Accepted: 25 September 2020 # Society of Wetland Scientists 2020
Abstract Coastal regions worldwide will be dramatically reshaped by the impacts of sea-level rise. Of particular concern are impacts on coastal wetlands, the loss of which would have consequences for both human and ecological communities. The future of many coastal wetlands will depend greatly on their capacities to migrate into uplands. Coastal resilience work within wetland sciences has increasingly focused on developing strategies to promote marsh migration into rural uplands; however, less attention has been given to the impacts that migrating marshes have on people in these landscapes. In this paper, we share rural perspectives and experiences with marsh migration through three case-studies from collaborative research with rural, low-lying communities on the Chesapeake Bay, USA. These case-studies demonstrate the complexities of the challenges facing rural communities as a result of marsh migration, and reveal important issues of equity and injustice that need attention in future coastal resilience work. We draw upon a socio-ecological systems (SES) approach to highlight potential human-ecological misalignments that emerge with marsh migration and to offer future research questions to inform socially-just and resilient wetland migration planning in rural coastal areas. Keywords Marsh migration . Coastal wetlands . Human dimensions . Rural landscapes . Socio-ecological systems . Coastal resilience . Climate change
Introduction Coastlines worldwide are facing dramatic changes this century due to climate-driven sea-level rise (IPCC 2014). Already, low-lying coastal regions face more frequent and severe flooding events from storm and tidal surges. In the United States (US), 2015 and 2018 set historic records for the highest number of annual high-tide flood days along US coastlines since 1920 (Sweet et al. 2019). High-tide flood days are most prevalent on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts (Sweet et al. 2019), with the Mid-Atlantic region experiencing some of the highest national tidal flood frequencies due to the compounding factors of land subsidence and ocean current shifts (Sallenger et al. 2012, Kopp 2013, Ezer and Adkinson 2014, Sweet et al. 2019). The Mid-Atlantic region includes the * Elizabeth R. Van Dolah [email protected] 1
Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland, 1111 Woods Hall, 4302 Chapel Lane, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Chesapeake Bay where, within the last century, water levels have risen by 30 cm (Titus and Strange 2008) and are projected to rise an additional 40-130cm above 2000 levels by 2100 (Boesch et al. 2018). These trends will have consequences for human communities and ecosystems alike as inundation rates increasingly affect the social and ecological conditions of
Data Loading...
