Wetlands Watch Partners with NASA DEVELOP to Address Critical Wetlands Loss in Hampton Roads

Wetlands Watch is proud to announce a groundbreaking partnership with NASA DEVELOP, which aims to employ NASA's advanced Earth observation technologies to combat the alarming rate of wetlands loss in Hampton Roads and along Virginia's Eastern Shore. Wetlands Watch staff worked with data scientists Katherine Kivimaki, Mitchell Johnson, Brooklyn Appling, and Sean Asbrand over the course of sixteen weeks on an exciting project that we believe will be consequential for the region.

Wetlands are critical ecosystems that offer numerous benefits to Virginia’s communities, including flood protection, water purification, and providing natural habitat for the state’s abundant wildlife. Ideally, as the seas rise, and the shoreline retreats landward, wetlands would follow and continue to provide rich benefits to Virginia’s communities. 

Unfortunately, this natural process has been hindered by decades of urbanization. Impervious surfaces such as roads and buildings physically block the inland migration paths that wetlands would ordinarily follow in response to rising seas. Because of these physical barriers, wetlands will not be able to migrate and risk drowning in place.

Adding to these challenges, the Supreme Court in Sackett vs. EPA has significantly reduced federal protections for wetlands dependent on groundwater or episodic precipitation, thereby exposing these vital areas to the threat of development. This decision exacerbates an already dire situation by making it increasingly difficult to preserve the remaining migration paths and ideal habitat essential for wetland survival.

The question we sought to address with NASA DEVELOP was: 

How much of the enormous wetlands loss in Hampton Roads and Virginia’s Eastern Shore can be mitigated through the strategic conversion of urban areas into ideal wetland habitats?

Predictive Modeling. In outlining the scope of the project, Wetlands Watch and NASA DEVELOP established a geographical boundary that included the majority of coastal communities across the greater Hampton Roads region (including the Middle Peninsula) and Virginia’s Eastern Shore. While processing data, NASA data scientists factored in scenarios for urban conversion potential, human-made “anthropogenic” barriers (such as buildings), projections of intertidal zone shifts, existing land slope conditions, and wetland migration rates to create data-informed images of the extent of future wetlands and where there is potential to reduce wetlands loss through urban conversion.

Using the scenarios described, the NASA team's model, based on processed data, forecasts that rising sea levels will result in an approximate 80% reduction in wetland areas by the end of the century. This aligns with the estimates of ongoing wetlands modeling at the state level, namely the Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Plan (CRMP)’s projection of 89% loss of all tidal wetlands by 2080 based on existing land use conditions and with no consideration of marsh migration. Consult this video for a visualization of this forecast in Poquoson.

(It's important to note that while the Coastal Resilience Master Plan encompasses the entire geographical area of Virginia's tidal wetlands, the NASA DEVELOP project targets a smaller subset of that area.)

The NASA DEVELOP modeling advances these analyses by estimating how much of the projected 80% total wetland loss could be mitigated if communities transform urban areas into optimal wetland habitats. This includes acquiring properties that frequently experience flooding and converting them into open spaces that are conducive to marsh migration. 

NASA's urban conversion suitability analysis revealed that up to 41% of the wetlands projected for loss by 2100 could be preserved if communities within the defined geographical area converted all regions with medium to high conversion potential into optimal green spaces. This assessment was based on the proportion of "natural" green space in each area—for instance, a coastal agricultural field on the Eastern Shore, with its higher ratio of natural versus built environment–has a greater potential for conversion than the more urbanized downtown Ghent in Norfolk.

Active human intervention is crucial for the survival of Virginia’s wetlands in order to ensure that these highly productive coastal ecosystems are protected from the impacts of sea level rise. The situation is critical, and there is no one strategy that is equal to the challenge. Even if all NASA-identified areas suitable for conversion are converted to wetlands, Virginia’s coastal communities will still encounter severe wetlands losses as sea level rise outpaces the vertical growth of marsh plants. Localities with steep, eroding cliffs along coastlines, such as Suffolk or those along the Rappahannock River in the Northern Neck, have even greater land use challenges to overcome in researching the feasibility to preserve and/or facilitate migration of wetland plants upland with such drastic elevation change. 

Conclusions. The partnership between Wetlands Watch and NASA DEVELOP represents a significant leap forward in the fight to understand how to preserve Virginia's wetlands from the devastating impacts of sea level rise and urban development. By employing NASA's advanced Earth observation technologies, this initiative not only enhances our understanding of the dynamics affecting wetland survival, but also empowers us to create actionable strategies for mitigating future wetland loss.

The innovative use of NASA's urban conversion suitability analysis to pinpoint potential areas for wetland restoration highlights a forward-thinking approach to environmental stewardship. This analysis offers a glimpse of hope, suggesting that strategic, well-planned interventions can substantially reduce the alarming rates of wetland loss that are predicted for this century. 

The findings also underscore the immense challenges ahead. The projected loss, even with optimal mitigation strategies, signals an urgent need for comprehensive and coordinated action that goes far beyond individual, small-scale mitigation projects. 

The urgency to act is compounded by legislative challenges which threaten the integrity and viability of these natural buffers against climate impacts. As such, this partnership is not just about leveraging technology for environmental monitoring. Rather, it’s about marshaling these insights to drive policy changes that are beneficial to the long term health and well-being of Virginia’s communities.

Wetlands Watch is excited about the outcomes of this project, and will continue to work with the NASA DEVELOP team to refine and analyze the data. Stay tuned for the next phase of this work!