CRMC Announces SLAMM
Study Participation, Sea-Level Rise Planning
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Succotash Salt Marsh, East Matunuck, RI
(photo credit Tracey C. O’Neill)
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Narragansett - The University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography Coastal Resources Center was
the site of the most recent gathering of the Rhode Island Beach SAMP, drawing a
full auditorium of coastal environmentalists, students and residents concerned
with continuing changes to the states shoreline.
The December 9 meeting
of the Rhode Island Shoreline Change Special Area Management Plan (Beach SAMP), focused on
the issue of seawalls and man-made coastal armoring, unveiled Rhode Island’s
pending participation in a federal Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)sea-level rise
planning program for wetlands.
“We have a problem here in RI with our current wetlands. A
lot of them are drowning in place,” said Grover Fugate, Executive Director
CRMC, announcing the program. “[We] are engaged with a project with Federal FWS
to see if we can’t bring sediment in and spray it onto the marsh to raise the
elevation of the marshes to keep up with that.”
Dubbed SLAMM, the
Sea-Level Affecting Marshes Model, developed and managed by FWS for its
National Wildlife Refuge system, began in 1988 and evolved over time. According
to FWS, in cooperation with the Division of Natural Resources and Conservation
Planning (NRCS), SLAMM modeling identifies a specific habitat via digitized
mapping and then applies several different sea-level rise scenarios.
To read the rest of Tracey's December 9 CRMC coverage, click here.