Project:
CLIMATE FUTURES ON THE GULF OF MAINE
Place-Based Scenarios for Vulnerable Infrastructure Systems
2025
“The engineer whose job it is to control the contents of a sewage treatment plant or paper mill effluent in northern New Hampshire can affect the livelihood of a fishman hundreds of miles away out to sea, even though their worlds are largely unknown to each other… the problems that confront us are symptomatic of our failure to think of the region as an interconnected whole, as an ecosystem.” – Philip W. Conkling, 1995
The Gulf of Maine is warming 97% faster than other oceans on the planet. Warming sea surface temperatures, storm surge, and sea level rise will bring many changes to communities along the Gulf of Maine coastline. Despite our increasing understanding of risks, coastal hazards, and ecosystem connectivity, private property development continues in sensitive areas, repetitive loss properties are rebuilt after storms, and piecemeal repairs delay long-term adaptation decisions.
The individual and collective decisions made along the Gulf of Maine about how to develop, maintain, and use these systems reflect broader cultural and value systems not only about infrastructure, but also about the relationship between the built environment and ecosystems. Over the past century, these value systems have prioritized private property ownership, and piecemeal, often reactive infrastructure installations around coastal development.
However, these systems can be difficult to understand when looking at familiar places and landscapes across the Gulf. Therefore, this report is an exercise in “landscape literacy” that describes the relationships between infrastructure systems and landscapes on the Gulf. This report uses visual storytelling to make these past decisions, and the underlying value systems on the Gulf visible, while building an understanding of future climate projections.
There are many existing reports and studies that have been undertaken to describe and understand the Gulf as a watershed. Similarly, there is extensive research and reporting on the infrastructure systems on the Gulf. These reports include hazard mitigation plans that describe vulnerable systems in individual municipalities, asset inventories by utility companies, and state-wide surveys to catalog and survey existing infrastructure hazards undertaken by professional organizations. This report synthesizes the findings and recommendations made in these previous studies, and proposes future scenarios that integrate infrastructure design and landscape planning.
This report uses place-based scenario planning to describe and compare three plausible, alternative futures for ten vulnerable infrastructures along the rim of the Gulf of Maine using landscape architectural drawing and renderings. The scenarios are designed to address challenges and opportunities around adapting infrastructure systems on the Gulf, while recognizing that these systems are connected to broader questions around the culture of resilience, climate adaptation, land use, and a just transition throughout the watershed.
Project Team: Charles Waldheim (PI), Kira Bre Clingen (PI), Sonja Angst, Justin Booz, Brianda Cerda, Willa DeBoom, Chad Gregory Dennis, Aleeza Malik, Andrew Schwartz, Charlotte Williams, and Angelina Zhang