{"id":98200,"date":"2024-10-08T19:31:38","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T19:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=98200"},"modified":"2024-10-08T19:31:39","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T19:31:39","slug":"informed-beach-walks-r-i-sea-grant-leading-tours-to-help-rhode-islanders-understand-shoreline-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2024\/10\/informed-beach-walks-r-i-sea-grant-leading-tours-to-help-rhode-islanders-understand-shoreline-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Informed beach walks: R.I. Sea Grant leading tours to help Rhode Islanders understand shoreline matters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Oct. 8, 2024 \u2013 The group of more than 40 people recently gathered on a narrow walkway at Barrington Town Beach drew quizzical looks from passersby. Perhaps it was the large poster board of aerial views of Barrington shoreline access points, or the sight of the town\u2019s planning director talking into a karaoke microphone about green infrastructure projects along the coastline.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Emi Uchida talked to community members at Barrington Town Beach this year, there to learn more about shoreline access and green projects taking place nearby.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The evening walk was not a nighttime field trip, but an educational seminar putting a spotlight on shoreline issues of stormwater and water quality, sea-level rise and shoreline access. However, these presentations are not taking place in classrooms, they\u2019re happening at the water\u2019s edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hosted by the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council, Rhode Island Sea Grant, and the 溏心vlog免费B站 Coastal Institute, these walking tours feature discussions of ongoing research and bring together experts in shoreline processes, resource economics, and the law. To date, walking tours have been held in Charlestown, Bristol, Barrington and Westerly. More walks are planned for 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Last month\u2019s King Tide showed what future flood impact could look like in Rhode Island. Waterfront residents can help track shoreline change by participating in the MyCoast program, uploading neighborhood photos for analysis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Sea Grant staff say that the walking tours spotlight projects taking place in towns across the state at the water\u2019s edge. Each tour invites local experts to speak about community efforts at each site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nathan Vinhateiro, science director for the Coastal Institute<\/a>, is leading a Rhode Island Sea Grant-funded project called \u201cSEA-C,\u201d or Sustained and Equitable Access to Rhode Island\u2019s Coast in a Changing Climate and has talked to residents about how communities will be impacted by sea-level rise or from storms. With recent events in the South in the wake of Hurricane Helene, it\u2019s a topic that\u2019s on the mind of many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vinhateiro says that sea level has risen a foot in Rhode Island in the last century, during which the shoreline at some local beaches has retreated 20 to 40 feet or more. And sea-level rise is accelerating. \u201cThe forecast now is that we\u2019re going to see another foot of sea-level rise in the next 10 to 15 years, and close to two feet by 2050,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Environmental Protection Agency also joined the most recent program and shared how the agency is using public data to understand the public\u2019s visits to Rhode Island beaches and other shoreline points on Narragansett Bay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An environmental economist with the EPA\u2019s Office of Research and Development at 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Narragansett Bay Campus, Nate Merrill is using traditional methods like car counts and surveys to monitor beach access, as well as newer methods of cell phone data and aerial imagery, to understand visitation to beaches and the distances people travel to access the shore. Put together, this data can be overlaid on an existing vulnerability assessment to create a risk metric, Merrill says. In addition to understanding which shore sites are more heavily used, cell phone data indicates that shore visitors cross socioeconomic and racial lines and groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe next step is to understand the potential barriers to accessing coastal sites, and ask whether climate change might impact different populations differently,\u201d says Emi Uchida, professor and chair of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Department of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beach walks, CRMC staff also discuss laws and regulations pertaining to coastal property and shoreline access and encourage attendees to continue to track shoreline change by participating in MyCoast<\/a>, sponsored by Rhode Island Sea Grant and the 溏心vlog免费B站 Coastal Resources Center, with Save The Bay. This is an effort to capture coastal flooding from King Tides and storms with photographs uploaded to a portal website that collects and analyzes photos that capture flood impact. These crowdsourced photos can create reports that help government agencies, business owners, and residents to understand shoreline change and make informed decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To learn more about public access to the Rhode Island shoreline, visit <\/em>shoreline-ri.com<\/em><\/a> or <\/em>seagrant.gso.uri.edu<\/em><\/a> or email <\/em>rhodeislandseagrant@gmail.com<\/em><\/a> to get updates on future shoreline access walks around the state.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Oct. 8, 2024 \u2013 The group of more than 40 people recently gathered on a narrow walkway at Barrington Town Beach drew quizzical looks from passersby. Perhaps it was the large poster board of aerial views of Barrington shoreline access points, or the sight of the town\u2019s planning director talking into a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":98201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98200"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98208,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98200\/revisions\/98208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}