Greenhouse effect and coastal wetland policy: How Americans could abandon an area the size of Massachusetts at minimum cost

Abstract

Climatologists generally expect an anthropogenic global warming that could raise sea level 30–150 cm in the next century and more thereafter. One of the impacts would be the loss of coastal wetlands. Although the inundation of adjacent dryland would enable new wetlands to form, much of this land is or will soon be developed. If developed areas are protected, wetlands will be squeezed between an advancing sea and the land being protected, which has already happened in China and the Netherlands, where people have built dikes for centuries.