ABSTRACT

In "Breaking the Waves," journalist Gabriel Popkin describes new approaches to coastal protection that build on ecosystem services. This chapter begins by giving examples of similar areas with different infrastructures, where the results of storms are different. It describes Maryland's pioneering law requiring that landowners who want to protect their shoreline build a "living shoreline" as the first option, and are only permitted to do coastal hardening if they prove that a living shoreline will not work at that particular site. The shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland are among the most vulnerable in the United States: Land subsidence there is causing local sea level rise to greatly exceed the global average, making coastal areas more vulnerable to storms. Waves have pushed some of the oyster sills toward shore and washed away some grasses that researchers had planted.