Beaufort County Sea Level Rise Adaptation Public Workshops August 25-26, 2014 Click here for downloadable presentation materials.  North Carolina Sea Grant Social and Environmental Research Institute South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium Climate scenarios
for temperature, precipitation, and sea level rise present a wide range of
possible climate futures for the coast.
Because of these changing climate stresses, coastal governments in the Carolinas must think about adapting to climate change,
but have little guidance from climate models beyond knowing that overall, it
could be drier or wetter, and that sea level will continue to rise at an unsteady
rate. One answer to coping with this
lack of precision is to focus on building a community’s ability to adapt its
infrastructure to a variety of climatic conditions, rather than planning for
specific actions in anticipation of specific projections. In this project, we
will demonstrate using local level adaptation scenarios for changes in planning
that increase Beaufort County’s resilience, or its ability to respond to a wide
range of climate futures. We will use a
flexible process that incorporates local knowledge, ensuring that the results
are relevant to Beaufort
County. These processes contribute
to climate change resilience even if the County does not adopt a fully
developed adaptation plan. |