What Are the Chesapeake Bay's Marshes Worth? New Study Suggests Billions
A journal article coauthored by Senior Fellow Margaret Walls, which details the effect of sea level rise and wetland loss on the Chesapeake Bay region, is covered by several Virginia/Maryland papers.
Climate experts have long warned that rising seas could add more destructive power to hurricane-whipped storm surges. But a new study centered on the Chesapeake Bay region suggests that another potential consequence of climate change could make that flooding even more devastating...
Some cities are already investing in expensive flood-control measures, such as higher sea walls, but the new research demonstrates the effectiveness of a comparatively low-tech solution, said Margaret Walls, one of the study’s authors and a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Resources for the Future. For instance, preserving higher land adjacent to marshes can give the plants somewhere to “migrate” as water rises, a conservation measure gaining traction around the Bay.
