How Will Boston And Other Coastal Cities Fight Sea Level Rise?

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In the 1980s Boston converted mud flats into prized land for its Seaport area. Even then, thoughts of sea level rise hovered in the back of developers’ minds, but the opportunity for growth and prime assets won out. Safeguards such as elevating the whole neighborhood or building sea walls around it were contemplated but ultimately removed as too expensive.

Empty lots, abandoned wharves, and industrial spaces were transformed into today’s $20 million real estate holdings: luxury apartments, biotech labs, condos, offices. The Seaport District is home to The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, the Institute of Contemporary Art, and the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse. The area is a destination for locals and tourists alike with bike and pedestrian boulevards; a harbor walk is filled with upscale restaurants and shops.

It is also a coastal area threatened by rising waters that are encroaching on the opulence, due to more common and devastating storms. “Climate change is expected to vastly impact the Greater Boston region’s environment, infrastructure, economy, and public health,” according to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. In fact, 99% of the Seaport’s built structure from the last 25 years is labeled as flood risks by 2050.

As reported by the Boston Globe, it’s not just buildings that need to withstand flooding — many of which have been designed to be flood resistant — streets and tunnels that connect to the rest of the city are vulnerable. Drains that overflow make condo towers and fine dining restaurants hard to reach.

No matter the modeling, nearly all of the Seaport area is vulnerable to flooding within the next quarter-century. About $7.6 billion in Seaport real estate sits at least partly within a 100-year flood plain and generated $129.5 million in taxes last year. A resulting lack of appeal that comes with flooding will chase away high-end tenants and reduce the tax base that currently funds city services beyond the Seaport footprint. So it’s much more than just the chic Seaport area that’s jeopardized. Many of Boston’s low-lying waterfront neighborhoods sit in flood plains, so that one of every seven Bostonians — about 100,000 people — will be exposed to flooding as soon as the 2050s.

What’s to be Done to Mitigate Flood Risk in Coastal Communities?

“Just as nature thrives through connection — marshes, rivers, and wildlife — our response must be collaborative,” says Kristen Sarri, Massachusetts state director for the Nature Conservancy. “Communities, nonprofits, government, scientists, and philanthropists must unite to share ideas and create solutions.”

Boston is already investing more into projects incorporating coastal resilience than it ever has in its history, Chris Osgood, who leads Boston’s office of climate resilience, told the Globe. As part of the Climate Ready Boston initiative, the Coastal Resilience Solutions plans presented coastal resilience strategies for each of Boston’s five coastal neighborhoods, including Charlestown, Dorchester, Downtown/North End, East Boston, and South Boston. Together, the plans create a vision for the future of the Boston coastline that reduces coastal flood risk, enhances the city’s natural ecosystems, and improves connectivity, accessibility, and recreation along the waterfront.

Earlier this week the city’s Office of Climate Resilience announced another step in its climate resilience efforts, launching the process to design coastal resilience infrastructure and a waterfront park to protect the Mario Umana Academy in East Boston.

Osgood’s office has been working with the US Army Corps of Engineers to craft a plan to protect waterfront neighborhoods; they had hoped to have it ready by 2028. However, WBUR has revealed that the multi-million dollar partnership to study coastal storm risk is one of many projects that may be in jeopardy after the US Office of Management and Budget announced a pause of $11 billion in Army Corps projects earlier this month. The study, which is already halfway completed, is part of a years-long effort to protect Boston’s coastline from climate-change related flooding.

(By the way, climate action proponents from the US are in force at COP30, laden with drafts of their own policy plans even if the Trump administration continually backs away from its climate responsibilities to US citizens.)

Coastal Flooding Scenarios

At the global scale, sea level is rising. Measured at tide gauges on every continent and by satellites in orbit, global average sea level has risen about 10–12 inches over the last 100 years. The observed increase in global average sea level is due mainly to melting of glaciers and ice sheets on land and the thermal expansion of ocean water as it warms.

In the next three decades, the following amounts of sea level rise are anticipated for these US regions:

• East Coast 10–14 inches (0.25–0.35 meters)
• Gulf Coast 14–18 inches (0.35–0.45 meters)
• West Coast 4–8 inches (0.1–0.2 meters)
• Caribbean 8–10 inches (0.2–0.25 meters)
• Hawaiian Islands 6–8 inches (0.15–0.2 meters)
• Alaska’s North Coast 8–10 inches (0.2–0.25 meters)

Due to a complex set of factors, water levels are not rising at the same speed everywhere. A particular set of factors has made the US South particularly vulnerable. These include ice melting in Greenland and Antarctica, land shifts, and oceans that are warmer than ever.

Researchers expect sea level rise to cause chronic shoreline retreat, affecting over 10% of the world’s population in low-elevation coastal zones. As a result, coastal landscape management is taking many different routes. Local communities are doing all they can to ensure the protection of people and buildings from storm waves that come crashing to shore, and erecting sea walls is a common solution.

As humans degrade and alter the planet, sea level rise is already impacting widely different locations like Miami, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, and the island states of the South Pacific. Each location requires a separate and regionally appropriate adaptive response.

Curious about your favorite US coastline area and its threats from sea level rise? Click on this interactive NOAA map and learn more.

Making Polluters Pay their Share

Vermont and New York have passed legislation requiring the largest greenhouse gas-emitting businesses to pay into superfunds to help pay for adaptation measures. Massachusetts has a proposed “Make Polluters Pay” bill that would make major emitters pay into a superfund to support projects such as coastal protections, wetland restoration, urban tree canopy, defensive upgrades to transit infrastructure, and building weatherization.

A national poll released by the Make Polluters Pay campaign shows overwhelming bipartisan support for requiring oil and gas companies to pay their fair share of climate damage costs, with 77% of likely voters backing climate Superfund legislation — an 11-point increase from April 2024. Disasters are becoming more frequent and are driving up costs that average people are forced to bear. Overall, the findings point to voters who are feeling the effects of climate change, expect costs to rise, and believe oil and gas companies should pay their fair share.

The Data for Progress non-profit that circulated the poll says that these results and more common experiences with extreme weather align with broader perceptions of a shifting climate. Could it be so?