Maryland, with 3,100 miles of tidal shoreline from the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries to the Atlantic Ocean and coastal bays, is highly vulnerable to sea-level rise. The effects of accelerated sea-level rise are already apparent, including shoreline erosion, deterioration of tidal wetlands, and saline contamination of low-lying farm fields. Later this century, rates of sea-level rise increasingly depend on the future pathway of global emissions of greenhouse gases during the next sixty years.
