Resilience Implementation for Salt-INtruded Geographies (RISING) Mid-Atlantic
The goal of Resilience Implementation for Salt-INtruded Geographies (RISING) Mid-Atlantic is to significantly improve the resilience and well-being of rural coastal communities in Maryland (MD), Delaware (DE) and New Jersey (NJ) who are impacted by saltwater intrusion (SWI) and sea-level rise (SLR). We will achieve this by developing and implementing coordinated, community-engaged solutions for two important coastal economic sectors: farming and forestry. Privately-owned farms and forests sit just upslope from saline marshes, which means climate change adaptation efforts, often initiated at the regional level, must align with the goals of individual landowners for them to be successfully implemented. Further, there is often a disconnect among researchers or conservation groups who may seek to facilitate marsh migration to maintain ecological function and services, and foresters or farmers who may see migrating marshes as a threat to their land and livelihoods. Thus, development and implementation of mitigation strategies in this dynamic context requires coordination, buy-in, and trust among the decision-makers, communities, and regional efforts. Climate resilience must literally be built from the ground up. Our aim is to use translational, community-engaged science to create a suite of solutions to improve agricultural, forestry, financial, environmental, and equity outcomes across the Mid-Atlantic region in the face of climate change. This project is led by the Department of Plant Sciences and Landscape Architecture at the UMD and it is funded by the National Science Foundation.