LEGAL 



TIDES 



The map of ocean shoreline change from 1852 to 1965 by John Fisher of North Carolina State University demonstrates the recession of the 

 ocean beach at Cape Hatteras. 



Or, more to the point, the rising sea will 

 accommodate itself one way or another. 

 That's precisely what land-use planning in 

 coastal counties needs to take into account to 

 keep people and structures out of harm's way, 

 says Walter Clark, North Carolina Sea Grant 

 coastal and marine policy specialist. 



"Still, it's difficult to get the public to 

 take a long-term view," he says. "Nature's 

 processes are slow, occurring over genera- 

 tions of time. Whereas, human responses tend 

 to be short-term fixes." 



In North Carolina, the 20 coastal 

 counties within the regulatory authority of the 

 state's Coastal Area Management Act are 

 required to have land-use plans. 



While CAMA guidelines recognize that 

 local governments need to be addressing sea- 

 level rise, few plans reflect even minimum 

 predictions of the rising sea, Clark says. In 

 fact, a study of land-use plans Clark 

 conducted for the U.S. Environmental 

 Protection Agency showed that most plans 

 historically have ignored the issue. 



But such an oversight could be costly, 

 considering that North Carolina has nearly 

 350 miles of ocean beaches and more than 

 1 ,700 miles of estuarine shoreline that form 



narrow barrier islands and a low-lying coastal 

 plain. Much of this area is less than 20 feet 

 above mean sea level, and a large percentage 

 is less than five feet above mean sea level. 



Given these topographical facts, coupled 

 with dramatic population increases along the 

 coast over the past two decades, it's clear to see 

 why North Carolina should be planning for long- 

 range impacts of sea-level rise, Clark observes. 



"A rising sea level could have a 

 significant environmental, social and 

 economic impact on the state," he says. 



A scientific view 



From a scientific perspective, climate 

 change and sea-level rise is an old story, says 

 Stanley R. Riggs, distinguished professor of 

 geology at East Carolina University. 



Author of a forthcoming Sea Grant/ 

 Division of Coastal Management publication, 

 Shoreline Erosion in North Carolina 's 

 Estuaries, Riggs explains that the history of 

 North Carolina's coastal system begins 

 between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago. 

 Massive ice sheets of the Pleistocene glacial 

 epoch covered the northern half of North 

 America. The North Carolina coastal system 

 was located below the edge of the continental 



shelf, or about 10 to 60 miles seaward of — 

 and 400 feet lower than — the present shoreline. 



As the glaciers began to melt and recede 

 in response to the warming climate at the end 

 of the Pleistocene, some 10,000 years ago, 

 the meltwaters began to raise global sea level 

 and generally migrate upward and westward 

 throughout much of the modern Holocene 

 epoch. The estuaries formed as the rising sea 

 flooded the topographically low river and 

 stream valleys. 



Data suggest that sea level is rising at 

 about 1.1 feet per century in the Charleston, 

 S.C., area and about 1 .4 feet per century in 

 the Norfolk, Va., area. Limited data for the 

 intervening coastal region suggest it may be 

 rising slightly faster, at about 1 .5 feet per 

 century, Riggs says. 



As glacial ice in Antarctica and 

 Greenland continues to melt in response to 

 global warming, the ongoing rise in sea level 

 will slowly flood the state's coastal lands, 

 Riggs says. And, if sea level continues to rise 

 at either the present or greater rate, and the 

 number and magnitude of storms that have 

 characterized the 1990s continues or 

 increases, he envisions a very different 

 coastal configuration by the end of 2200. 



24 HIGH SEASON 2002 



