Oct 28, 2009 5:30 pm US/Eastern
Md. Prepares For Rising Sea Levels
DORCHESTER COUNTY, Md. (WJZ) ―
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Rising sea levels will be a major challenge for Maryland.
CBS
While commuters navigate roads home Wednesday evening, saving those roads, bridges and homes from rising sea levels is looking like a major challenge for Maryland.
Alex DeMetrick reports a new study backs up other findings, predicting a soggy future.
When it comes to rising sea levels, Maryland not only has the Atlantic to worry about. It has the eastern and western shores of the Chesapeake.
All that waterfront means one thing.
"Maryland is one of the most vulnerable states in the country with respect to the impact of sea level rise," said Eric Schwabb, deputy secretary of the Department of Natural Resources.
That's going to mean greater storm surges in the short term, and according to a study released in the journal Environmental Research Letters, what land can't be protected will be lost in the future.
Planners from throughout Maryland have been looking at those problems already and may reach answers before other states.
They're using strategies like living shorelines, which create natural buffers. And by setting aside critical areas, they will give water a place to move safely inland and establish new marshes on undeveloped land.
The focus right now is on low-lying rural counties like Dorchester and Somerset as the clock ticks for land along the shore.
Only Louisiana and Florida are more threatened by sea level rise, but the General Accounting Office has rated Maryland the most effective at planning for it.
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