Maryland Coastal Fellowship Project 1: Community Engagement and Coastal Resilience Fellow
This fellowship will work as a bridge between state-level programs and community actions focused on enhancing local government capacity for coastal management and heat mitigation. The fellow will function as a communicator and strategist to address coastal hazards and advance adaptation goals. This fellow will research vulnerability hotspots (flooding and extreme heat) and conduct targeted community engagement offering tools and resources. The fellow will also provide recommendations on how the Department of Natural Resource’s (DNR) Coastal Management Program (CMP) can enhance its program of work to address heat, based on learnings from public engagement experiences.
Maryland Coastal Fellowship Project 2: Resilient Restoration Permitting and Shoreline Programs
A fellow will help to advance Maryland’s NextGen Adaptation Plan resilient restoration and permitting and regulatory outcomes by working jointly with the Department of Natural Resource’s (DNR) Coastal Management Program (CMP) and CMP network partners at the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE). A fellow will identify opportunities to simplify the permitting process to make the process of resilient restoration easier, support outreach and communication efforts around project implementation, and help to accelerate implementation of resilient nature-based projects. The fellow will work to review other states’ approaches – such as Virginia’s general permit and North Carolina – to identify ecosystem restoration project permitting options that incorporate resilience. The fellow will then develop proposed options for updates, engage in shoreline and other funding program updates, and create communication products to increase understanding about shoreline and other nature-based project restoration.
