Maryland Public Television for Earth Day: High Tide In Dorchester

High Tide in Dorchester aims to create a conversation about climate change, along with related impacts of sea level rise and erosion, and leverage that conversation into action. Locations around the country already have growing concerns for the future that increasingly faces coastal areas worldwide, including Dorchester County, MD. This low-lying county on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay is the fourth largest of Maryland’s 23 counties by land area, but it is destined to drop to the 14th largest by 2100 – or sooner – as waters rise and erosion worsens. Dorchester is fast becoming the coal miner’s canary; ground zero for the Chesapeake Region. High Tide in Dorchester is a wake-up call: It’s time for a retreat from the shoreline, of which the Chesapeake estuary has some 11,000 miles. Rising seas also threaten many species of waterfowl and other birds that nest in these extensive wetlands. It is imperative that we give our wetlands space to migrate upland as they are flooded in the lowlands.