National Study Puts Timeline on Impact of Sea-Level Rise in Maryland and Virginia

July 25, 2017

Print This Article Share it With Friends

by Joe Heim (The Washington Post) On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, rising seawater levels and chronic flooding threaten to disrupt daily life, damage homes and businesses, and swallow land in the relatively near future, according to a new study. For some parts of the Eastern Shore, there soon may be no more there there.

That’s the takeaway from a report released Wednesday by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The study, “When Rising Seas Hit Home: Hard Choices Ahead for Hundreds of U.S. Coastal Communities,” looks at the impact rising sea levels caused by global warming will have on coastal regions across the country.

Maryland, with 3,100 miles of tidal shore along the Atlantic Ocean and Chesapeake Bay, will be particularly hard hit, according to the study. Only Louisiana has more locations that will be affected as severely.

The study identifies 167 communities in 13 states that by 2035 will face chronic inundation — which it defines as when high tides flood 10 percent or more of the community’s usable, non-wetland area at least 26 times per year. Twenty-two of those communities are in Maryland, most on the Eastern Shore, which is coping with sinking land and rising sea levels. The study also points to three Virginia communities facing chronic inundation by 2035. READ MORE Download study