Transcript:
In the Great Lakes region, climate change is causing more intense storms with heavy rain and powerful waves that can erode beaches and bluffs, wash out roads, and damage homes.
Properties near the shoreline are most vulnerable – especially when water levels are high.
Zoë Kuntze of the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Cities Initiative says lake levels rise and fall naturally.
Kuntze: “But we’re seeing an increased irregularity and extremes with those highs and lows with climate change.”
To protect properties, cities and homeowners sometimes build concrete floodwalls or other hard barriers.
Kuntze says these barriers may provide short-term protection. But they destroy wildlife habitat, and by reducing sandy and marshy areas that absorb waves and water, they often cause more erosion elsewhere.
So her group helps communities design and secure funding to create what are called living shorelines – for example, a buffer of deep-rooted marsh grasses that absorb water, break waves, and stabilize the shore.
Kuntze: “Really, it’s a way to kind of naturalize the shoreline in a way that reflects what it used to be, so it’s more resilient to the challenges that we’re experiencing along the coastline.”
Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy / ChavoBart Digital Media / Thanks to the Midwest Climate Resilience Conference for logistical support.
