From farming to fishing and much more, how climate change impacts Maryland’s Eastern Shore

The impact of climate change on the state is as varied as its landscape. From vast forests and rolling farms that line the Eastern Shore to the 80.9 square miles of Baltimore City scattered with heat islands, different areas of the state will be affected by climate change in vastly different ways. 

The changes Maryland is likely to face are detailed in the federal government’s fifth National Climate Assessment — but the Trump administration deleted all that data from the internet on June 30. However, the Local News Network at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism downloaded all that data months ago and used it as the basis of this story.

Here’s a closer look at what’s happening to the climate, and what’s expected to happen, on the Eastern Shore

Ghost forests a growing threat on Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore

The remnants of Harriett Tubman’s birth home sit in a dying forest in Dorchester County.

“They found the original foundations of her home and you now can’t even get there because it’s in the middle of a ghost forest,” said Kate Tully, a researcher and associate professor at the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Ghost forests — which are either partially or completely dead — can be found throughout the lower Eastern Shore in Dorchester, Somerset, Worcester and Wicomico counties. These ghost forests result from saltwater intrusion, or what Tully refers to as “invisible floods,” where seawater creeps inland as temperatures and waters rise.

“That’s essentially when the salt burns the tree from the inside out,” Tully said.  

High tides, droughts and groundwater pumping all contribute to this increasingly common phenomenon. Eventually, land plagued by saltwater intrusion turns into either marshland or open water.

As a result, Tubman’s home — only discovered just a few years ago in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge — is now inaccessible.

In the lower Eastern Shore, there are over 70,000 acres of forest classified by the state as ghost forests, with 90% of those acres classified as severely or very severely impacted. For a forest to fall under these classifications, at least half of its trees would be dead.

Eastern Shore farms also under threat from saltwater intrusion

But saltwater intrusion isn’t just killing forests. 

“There are farmers that are being highly impacted by the saltwater intrusion and the loss of productivity of their land,” said Elliott Campbell, director of the science and research division of the Watershed and Climate Services at Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources.. “There’s not really a way to, like, get the salt out.”

Farms along the Eastern Shore, including northern counties such as Cecil, Kent, Talbot and Caroline, are known for growing corn and soybeans, used primarily to feed livestock, Campbell said. But these crops don’t grow well in salty soil, and Campbell said there is no perfect alternative. 

While there are vulnerable farms throughout the entire shore, Tully said Black communities in the lower Eastern Shore are being disproportionately impacted by saltwater intrusion. 

“We’ve already lost so many Black farms in Black communities on the Eastern Shore,” Tully said. “There’s actually a whole history that’s already gone underwater that we will never get back.”

In the Antebellum period, the lower Eastern Shore became home to many free Black people escaping slavery from Virginia and other Southern states. The tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay helped provide a living for many formerly enslaved people. But Tully said these communities — and their deep-rooted history — will disappear soon if they’re not already underwater.

Chesapeake Bay, fishing industry also imperiled

The Chesapeake Bay region is the United States’ third-most vulnerable area to sea level rise behind Louisiana and South Florida, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

Because the low-lying, largely flat area is so vulnerable, the effects of an increasing climate are much more intense than in other parts of the state. The Chesapeake Bay has already risen from 1.3 to 1.5 inches each decade over the past 100 years, and increasing temperatures would drastically increase precipitation.

The land isn’t the only thing vulnerable to climate change. Throughout the entire Eastern Shore, the fishing industry is changing. 

“One very clear example is that we never had a shrimp industry in the state until the last couple years,” Campbell said.

Campbell also said blue crabs populations, which do well in warmer waters, will thrive. But the effects on the bay aren’t all positive.

Warmer waters will kill fish at an increasing rate, Campbell said. Similarly, an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases the acidity in the ocean water, which can deplete oyster populations. 

As for the Eastern Shore’s farmland and ghost forests, Campbell said the best case for this land experiencing saltwater intrusion is for it to transition into wetlands. The state has a pilot program to help farmers with that transition.

“In some cases, you see marshes forming under those forests,” Campbell said. “But in some cases, they eventually will transition to just open water and you lose that ecosystem.”

Capital News Service reporter Rachel McCrea contributed to this report.