Climate Change | Sea Level Rise | Ocean Acidification

April 10, 2025

Nantucket Island (by Randy Levine CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 via Flickr).

How Nantucket Is Preparing for Rising Seas – Inside Climate News

Excerpt:
The Massachusetts island anticipates damages of $3.4 billion through 2070 if nothing is done.

It’s no longer unusual to see a kayaker paddling along downtown Easy Street. The cobblestones along the town’s waterfront once were flooded a handful of times a year. That rose to an average of 37 days a year by 2020, according to tide gauge monitors by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The next year, Nantucket began taking steps to beat the tide.

Town and county officials cooperated on a coastal resilience plan in 2021 following an island-wide risk assessment that found four major concerns: groundwater table rise, coastal flooding, high tide flooding and coastal erosion. The 270-page report was more than timely: Easy Street was flooded a record 75 days in 2023.

Leah Hill, the town’s coastal resilience advisory coordinator, said in an email exchange that a smart defense is the best way for the island off Cape Cod to survive. The initial assessment found 2,373 buildings and structures at risk from erosion and flood in the next few decades. Of those buildings, 84 percent are residential and nearly 50 percent are historic, according to the assessment. 

The resilience plan is simple in theory and challenging in execution, given the island’s mix, Hill said. It is based on three strategies. “Protect (keep water out), adapt (live with water), retreat (move away from water),” according to Hill’s email. “Depending on which critical infrastructure is at risk depends on which strategy is recommended.”

About 14,000 people live on the island year-round and the population soars to 80,000 during summer months, according to the 2020 census. 

Nantucket’s Coastal Resilience Advisory Committee—made up of representatives from the Conservation Commission, the Land Bank and the town’s planning board among others—is the latest effort by a community that has been vigilant about protecting its coast and wetlands. 

Hill said that the coastal resilience plan will assess risks every five to 10 years. The plan so far has identified 40 proposed projects over the next 15 years at a cost of $930 million—and Hill noted that if nothing is done to fight sea level rise, Nantucket anticipates damages totaling $3.4 billion through 2070. 

To date, the island has committed to $14 million for coastal resilience projects, which includes planning, design and implementation. 

Hill said about $2 million has been spent since 2020, including $350,000 on pond and road improvements and $500,000 to develop the coastal resilience plan. The town also applies for federal and state grants. In 2022, Nantucket received $158,000 in a SNEP Watershed Implementation Grant from the Environmental Protection Agency and another $500,000 from the state Office of Coastal Zone Management. Nantucket has allocated $2.5 million over the next few years for an Easy Street flood mitigation project and another $4.5 million for a pond/roadside protection project. 

Dr. William Sweet is an oceanographer at NOAA, which has been tracking sea level rise in Nantucket Harbor since 1965. Sea levels have risen there by about half a foot since 2000, and this rate is accelerating, he said. Over 50 years, sea levels on Nantucket rose about eight inches, with six recorded since 1985, according to NOAA data.

Sweet said the sea level could rise a foot higher by 2055 based on the agency’s 2022 interagency report. Nantucket represents, he said, “more or less the East Coast story…” 

Read Full Article: Inside Climate News (06-06-2025)

Image at top: Nantucket Island (by Randy Levine CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 via Flickr).

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