Climate Ready Estuaries

North Carolina’s Albemarle-Pamlico Estuary is renowned for its natural resources. Its ecosystems support productive commercial and recreational fisheries, clean beaches and waters, and a dynamic travel and tourism economy. It is the second largest estuary – after the Chesapeake Bay – on the Atlantic side of North America. Climate change and sea level rise threaten the ecosystems, the economy and the communities of the estuary. The region is considered as vulnerable to sea level rise and coastal storms as the Mississippi delta and Southern Florida. The state’s Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Program (APNEP), with support from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Ready Estuary program, contracted the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions to develop recommendations to help state and local officials as well as citizens plan for and adapt to climate change and sea level rise.