The View from Morse Mountain: Climate Change and Resilience on the Maine Coast

Arguing that resilient coasts emerge from collaborative, cross-disciplinary understanding rather than single-issue solutions At the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area, climate change impacts are visible to the attentive observer.High tides increasingly flood the causeway across the Sprague River Salt Marsh, large winter storms are reshaping the sand dunes at Seawall Beach, and the offshore waters of the Gulf of Maine are among the fastest-warming on the planet.Environmental change is not new there, nor is the impact of human activity, but different parts of this coastal system are changing at different rates, in different ways.Some components are potentially self-renewing, such as the barrier dune beach, while others, such as Piping Plover populations or the salt marshes, might be restored only with assistance.Unfortunately, other components may already be beyond help: the forest of pitch pines between the dunes and the marsh faces the dual threat of saltwater intrusion below groun