Sustaining Coastal Wetlands in a Time of Severe Storms and Rising Seas

More severe storms and rising sea levels resulting from a changing climate pose a threat to ecosystems along the American coast, including beaches, dunes, wetlands, and marshes. These ecosystems provide significant environmental, recreation, and economic benefits. Practices to sustain these ecosystems are available but are not well understood, face legal and financial obstacles, and have not been widely implemented. ELI will host two webinars with the goal of building understanding of measures to sustain coastal ecosystems and removing obstacles to the wider application of needed practices:

• Sustaining Coastal Wetlands in a Time of Severe Storms and Rising Seas; and
• Managing Threats to America’s Beaches from Storms and Rising Seas.

The webinar is intended to provide the audience with an overview of measures and practices that will sustain coastal wetlands as a changing climate drives more severe storms and rising seas. Presenters will review work to develop tools for improved planning, investments, and regulations that can protect existing wetlands and the upland areas that wetlands will migrate to as sea levels rise. Background information about the climate change risks to coastal wetlands will be summarized briefly by the moderator but more detailed information will be included in read ahead materials rather than presented in detail during the webinar.

Panelists:
Jeff Peterson, Visiting Scholar, Environmental Law Institute, and Co-facilitator, Coastal Flood Resilience Project, author of A New Coast, Moderator
Nicole Carlozo, Section Chief, Waterfront and Resource Planning, at Maryland Department of Natural Resources
Emily Donahoe, Policy Specialist for Resilient Coasts and Floodplains, National Wildlife Federation
Mallory Eastland, Project Coordinator, South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative
Amanda Santori, Ecologist, U.S. EPA Office of Wetlands Oceans and Watersheds

An Environmental Law Institute webinar.