CRMC, URI host climate change conference

June 19, 2008, WAKEFIELD – The RI Coastal Resources Management Council and University of Rhode Island Coastal Institute hosted a day-long discussion on climate change and its effects on Rhode Island’s coastline.

“Climate Change and Rhode Island’s Coast: Where Will Tomorrow’s Shoreline Be?” was held on June 17 at the Towers in Narragansett. The conference was followed by a reception and a show, “It’s a Shore Thing: Coastal Cabaret” produced by Judith Swift of URI.

The day’s events included discussions led by the CRMC, URI Graduate School of Oceanography, the state’s geologist, coastal town officials other respected environmental professionals. Sponsors included The Nature Conservancy of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Sea Grant Program and the 2008 URI Honors Colloquium: People and Planet – Global Environmental Change.

“All of the data we’re looking at right now is lining up at the worst-case scenario,” said Grover Fugate, executive director of the CRMC. “With sea level rise along the shore we’re interested in [looking at] increases in erosion, ground water contamination by sea water and ISDS failures. We’re also going to be more susceptible to storm damage.”

Some possible ways to manage sea level rise, Fugate said, are to accommodate it – build structures at a certain height above expected sea level rise (free board); retreat from it; or protect ourselves from it by protecting infrastructure and services and nonstructural areas like beaches and vegetated sites.

“Climate change has to be systematic throughout our program now,” he said. “We’re going to have to consider out-of-the-box ideas now.”

The CRMC in 2007 created a new section of its program to specifically address global climate change and sea level rise, one of the first programs in the nation to do this, and it will provide a framework for standards, restrictions and regulations as the CRMC collects more data on sea level rise and how it will affect Rhode Island.

Kate Moran, professor of oceanography and ocean engineering and associate dean of the URI Graduate School of Oceanography reviewed the science of climate change and discussed the latest available data addresses causes of climate change and how climate change will manifest itself. She also discussed various climate change projections for the future.

“It’s happening globally and locally,” she said of climate change and global warming. “Narragansett Bay is warming. We’re seeing an increase in storminess, and increase in drought, and an increase in ocean acidification.”

Moran said that the sea level rise estimates made in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released last year are conservative at best. The observations, she said, almost double the 3-foot sea level rise expected and do not even take into account the impacts of changes in the Arctic ice sheet floes.

Jon Boothroyd, professor of geosciences and the state geologist, reviewed the physical and geological changes that will occur on Rhode Island’s coast in the context of climate change. Boothroyd and his students have conducted numerous studies, and he has more than 30 years of research and monitoring the state’s coastline. Boothroyd said that sea level rise will be the vehicle that continues to push back the natural barrier beaches.

“There will always be a beach; it will just be somewhere else,” he said.

Janet Freedman, CRMC’s coastal geologist, provided an overview of the work the CRMC has done to ensure coastal zone policies reflect the anticipated changes under climate change. According to Freedman, climate change and sea level rise could cause coastal environment changes like salt marsh drowning, eelgrass bed stress from rising water temperatures, increased invasive species, and shifting fisheries habitats. The CRMC, in adopting its new Section 145: Climate Change and Sea Level Rise, recognizes that sea level rise is occurring and the primary concern is the accelerated rate of rise and the associated risks to Rhode Island’s coast.

Freedman explained that the CRMC, through these regulations, will use a base rate of expected 3 -5-foot sea level rise by 2100 in siting, designing and implementing public and private coastal activities. The CRMC, she said, will also insure proactive stewardship of coastal ecosystems under these changing conditions, and revisit long term sea level changes periodically to address the latest scientific evidence.

In South Kingstown, according to Town Manager Stephen Alfred, officials are thinking about climate change issues and planning now to prepare for the changes expected over the next decades. South Kingstown is an especially vulnerable community with a lot of coastline and considerable property at risk. According to Alfred, the town recently received a $100,000 grant to examine Matunuck Beach Road and the Matunuck area. The infrastructure in that area is in danger of being washed out by sea level rise.

“That road will break at some time,” Alfred said at the conference. “We’re applying for funding to relocate the water service.”

Judith Swift, professor of communications studies and professor of theatre at URI, led a lively and thought-provoking musical performance focusing on various contemporary issues in coastal zone management she developed with her colleagues. It is a show that puts invasive species, fishery declines, and sea level rise to song.

Richard Horwitz, senior fellow of the Coastal Institute and a contractor for R.I. Department of Environmental Management who handles emergency response planning provided a summary of the day’s discussions, and captured the messages of the day and the views that the audience brought to the discussion.

A major theme for the day, he said was that “we are largely responsible for this, we and our ancestors, and we need to reduce our carbon footprint,” he said. Something he gleaned from the conference – “How much of an investment in certainty do we need before we start doing things that are more intelligent?”

For more information on sea level rise, go to the CRMC web site at www.crmc.ri.gov.