Create or amend local bylaws and regulations to accommodate rising sea levels and allow beach systems to respond to changing climatic conditions.

Coastal beaches and dunes change constantly in response to wind, waves, tides, and other factors such as sea level rise and human changes to the shoreline system. Climate change will result in greater storm damages to existing coastal development and an increase in recurring storm damage to individual properties. Where the shoreline has not been stabilized to protect development or where development has been significantly damaged, it is important to allow migration of beach systems. By strengthening or developing new local wetland bylaws to account for sea level rise and the migration of beach systems, the resiliency of these systems to respond to changing conditions and continue to support coastal fish and wildlife can be maintained.

Massachusetts communities have recognized the importance of protecting wildlife and its habitat as well as preventing storm damage and flooding across dynamic coastal floodplains. Chatham’s wetlands bylaw and Regulations for Coastal Wetlands recognize that coastal floodplains immediately landward of migrating beaches, dunes, banks, and marshes require special protection. These “special transitional areas” will be inundated more frequently as sea level rises and need to be maintained in their natural state. Wellfleet similarly addresses landward migration of wetland resources with sea level rise in their Environmental Protection Regulations. The Kingston Wetland Protection Regulations include considerations for one to two feet of sea level rise as well as beach system migration. The City of Boston’s Environment Department also investigated creating a local wetlands ordinance in 2013 that included a buffer to its currently developed floodplain as well as a new protected area to accommodate sea level rise and minimize future coastal flooding impacts.