Supporting Coastal Community Resilience through Natural Infrastructure - Crisfield, MD Stakeholder Meetings, April 19 & 20, 2024
Citation:
Yee, S., R. Kashuba, E. Eisenhauer, AND J. West. Supporting Coastal Community Resilience through Natural Infrastructure - Crisfield, MD Stakeholder Meetings, April 19 & 20, 2024. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-25/003, 2025.
Impact/Purpose:
Information learned from the meetings will be used to help EPA ORD focus research on nature-based strategies around what matters most to Crisfield, including i) the potential benefits of strategies like marsh restoration, dune restoration, living shorelines, artificial reefs, and living breakwaters to protect Crisfield from storm events, and ii) the potential additional environmental, social and economic co-benefits these strategies might provide to Crisfield. Ultimately the goal of the EPA ORD project, through a process of co-production with community partners, is that research is formulated and conducted to directly inform on-the-ground decisions by community partners about what type of NBS could be implemented and where, and how NBS could help support Crisfield’s broader resilience goals.
Description:
Like many coastal communities, the City of Crisfield, Maryland is experiencing increased inundation due to sea level rise, land subsidence, and intensifying storms. The U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD) has partnered with the Crisfield community to explore the potential of natural infrastructure, or nature-based strategies (NBS), to help decrease storm surge, wave water heights, and erosion under ongoing sea level rise, in addition to providing other environmental, social, and economic co-benefits to the Crisfield community. The goal is to design and conduct this research to directly inform on-the-ground decisions about what types of NBS could be built in which locations around Crisfield. To be able to truly co-develop this research with the Crisfield community, EPA ORD needs to better understand community values to ensure that the research is designed to measure and model the things Crisfield cares about. The research also needs to take into account local considerations to ensure proposed strategies are implementable. Research co-production is an iterative and on-going process, adapting research as more information is learned about community values, and more is understood about the science and engineering capabilities of natural infrastructure strategies. In April 2024, EPA ORD conducted two stakeholder meetings to inform research goals and project design: 1) a meeting of institutional partners to get feedback on the proposed research plan and 2) a public natural spaces discussion with community residents to better understand how communities use and benefit from coastal habitats. On April 19, 2024, EPA ORD hosted a meeting of institutional partners about “Supporting Coastal Community Resilience through Natural Infrastructure” to solicit input and feedback for moving forward with the research. At this meeting EPA shared the history, goals and status of EPA ORD research with Crisfield. Most importantly, EPA ORD engaged participants in an interactive discussion about what had been learned so far and plans for next steps, including: • Understanding and identifying which specific NBS projects might be most effective for the Crisfield community at reducing the severity of storm impacts, wave impacts, and related flooding and erosion, and • Identifying what are the other types of co-benefits of interest to the Crisfield community that these different NBS projects will simultaneously provide that contribute towards achieving Crisfield’s broader coastal resilience goals. On April 20, 2024, EPA ORD hosted a public discussion with community residents on “How do the People of Crisfield Feel about their Coastal Natural Spaces?”. Meeting participants were asked to provide their thoughts and insights on: • Where are some of Crisfield’s most important natural or outdoor places and why? • Who uses or cares about Crisfield’s coastal natural spaces? • What is it about coastal spaces that matters to people? • How do changes in coastal spaces affect people? Information learned from these two meetings will be used to help EPA ORD focus research on NBS around what matters most to Crisfield stakeholders. ORD plans to engage a technical working group to get intermittent feedback as the research data collection and analysis progresses. Future institutional partner and public meetings are planned for EPA to present and discuss research results with all interested parties.