Nantucket Conference Will Explore Challenges of Rising Sea Levels to Coastal Communities

NANTUCKET, Mass., Sept. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- As sea levels continue to rise, what are coastal communities doing to adapt to and mitigate a situation that could result in the eventual displacement of millions of Americans and destroy beaches and coastal ecosystems?

Leading government officials, policy-makers, scientists, insurance experts and others will join together at a conference here on September 24 to explore the issues from various points of view and discuss how some communities are preparing for the future.

Speakers at the first Living on the Edge: Coastal Communities Conference will showcase the latest technology that scientists are using to visualize the impact of rising sea levels and discuss what communities can do to adapt to and lessen the impact.

The conference is sponsored by the Egan Maritime Institute and ReMain Nantucket in collaboration with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, The Nature Conservancy, and the Maria Mitchell Association.

The morning's presentations will highlight the latest technological tools used to visualize and predict the impacts of sea level rise on coastal communities, and will include experts from Climate Central, the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management and the U.S. Geological Survey's Coastal and Marine Geology Program.  

Ian A. Bowles, Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, will be the keynote speaker.

Panelists in the afternoon will include experts from The Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Navy, the Reinsurance Association of America, Partners Healthcare, Eastern Carolina University, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Afternoon panels will be moderated by science writers Andrew Revkin and Cornelia Dean.

The conference will be held at the historic Coffin School on Winter Street in Nantucket.  To register or for more information, visit www.coastalcommunitiesconference.org

SOURCE ReMain Nantucket