Coastal Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerabilities - Climate ...

Introduction and Context 9coastal wetlands and upland habitat and permanently protected over 2 million acres ofcoastal habitat (Fish and Wildlife Service, 2012). NOAA also directly manages coastalareas through the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, oversees critical fisheries habitatsthrough the National Marine Fisheries Services, and supports regional to local conservationand management efforts through the National Estuarine Research Reserves,state Coastal Zone Management programs, the Coral Reef Conservation Program, andthe National Sea Grant College Program. The EPA also supports local efforts throughthe National Estuary program while the USDA/NRCS supports conservation principallythrough the Crop Protection Reserve Program. Many other public and private coastalacquisition and conservation efforts have been initiated in recent years; organizationslike Trust for Public Lands, The Nature Conservancy, and the community land trusts arebut a few of these key partners.New concepts for future coastal development have also been introduced. Green infrastructureplanning is an example of a strategy to incorporate conservation of habitatsinto coastal communities. This concept for planning future urban growth promotes aninterconnected network of protected land and water that supports native species, maintainsnatural ecological processes, sustains air and water resources, and contributes toa community’s health and quality of life (Benedict & McMahon, 2006). Many other examplesof development planning that can help offset the potential impacts of climatechange while concomitantly reducing the effects of human development on coasts arepresented in Chapters 4 and 5 of this report.A major challenge for coastal habitats and communities in the coming years will beadapting to the increasing demands on natural resources given the changing climate.Many strategies are available for land use, energy needs, transportation, and other criticalinfrastructure choices that may reduce the severity of impacts or reverse them altogether.The opportunity for restoring coastal habitats is among the conservation optionsthat many coastal states have selected in recent years (Borja et al., 2010). Restorationactivities and the establishment of buffers and setbacks increase resilience to climatechange by managing current stressors that interact with climate change effects; however,although these efforts can result in recovery of some portions of coastal systems, substantiallags and barriers may still slow full recovery (Cardoso et al., 2010). The scale ofsuch efforts will be important as population continues to grow and development occursalong coasts, so that negative impacts are minimized. Easing the existing pressures oncoastal environments to improve their resiliency is one method of coping with the adverseeffects of climate change.