Saltwater is seeping into Maryland’s coastal forests. This team is helping landowners prepare.
Researchers are building an online tool to help woodlot owners and farmers navigate options for preserving their land and livelihoods.
A woodlot owner might have only one chance to harvest timber in their lifetime.
This is often the case in Maryland, where the loblolly pine is the primary species grown for lumber. The tree takes half a century to grow 80 feet or more, the ideal height for telephone poles and pier pilings.
Like many regions of the world, Maryland has endured drought and pests such as the pine bark beetle that kills trees. Along the state’s Eastern Shore, an eight-county region that runs the length of Chesapeake Bay, the forests face an additional risk: saltwater intrusion in the soil.
“We get apprehensive every time we see the water,” said Rick Abend, who has managed his 100-acre property in coastal Dorchester County for timber, hunting, and crops since 1972. “We know it’s been on the increase.”
When saltwater seeps into the ground, it infiltrates groundwater, the natural freshwater reservoirs that saturate the soil and nourish tree roots. Most species can’t tolerate high salt content in groundwater.
We get apprehensive every time we see the water. We know it’s been on the increase. ”
A 2012 study found that from 1970 to 2009, the rate of sea level rise along portions of North America’s east coast, including Massachusetts, was more than triple the global average. In addition to this long-term intrusion, storms can suddenly overwhelm marshes, flooding the land with seawater.
“Saltwater intrusion can go unnoticed for a long time until suddenly, the trees are dead,” said Elliott White Jr., an assistant professor of Earth system science in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, and an expert in climate change impacts on coastal ecosystems. “It’s an insidious problem that is hard to communicate urgency for.”
White has teamed up with other researchers at Stanford and the University of Maryland to monitor saltwater progression in forests along the Eastern Shore, part of a project supported by the Stanford Sustainability Accelerator in the Doerr School of Sustainability. The group is also learning from local landowners about changes they’re observing, like unseasonal turns in leaf color, which may be linked to saltwater intrusion. The researchers are measuring salinity levels in groundwater throughout the region and analyzing them alongside landowners’ observations to identify reliable early indicators of rising salinity.
The challenge of saltwater intrusion in Maryland hits close to home for Julia Sharapi, a PhD student in the Doerr School of Sustainability’s Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources. She is co-advised by White and Barton Thompson, the Robert E. Paradise Professor in Natural Resources Law. Sharapi grew up in Maryland and studies how hazards like sea level rise and saltwater intrusion affect coastal communities.
To understand how coastal landowners are experiencing sea level rise, Sharapi reached out to Kate Tully and Becky Epanchin-Niell, professors at the University of Maryland’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Tully and Epanchin-Niell have worked with Abend and other property owners, as well as regional land trusts and state agencies, for over a decade to understand how sea level rise will change how people can live off the land, particularly farmers.
Whereas farmers may spot early stages of saltwater intrusion through dips in annual crop yields and can adapt by switching to salt-tolerant plants, woodlot owners have little warning that saltwater threatens their trees. They also have fewer options to adapt. Two common choices include opening the property to permitted hunting or putting the land into a conservation easement.
Conservation easements often provide some combination of financial incentives and technical assistance, such as guidance on which plants to grow in certain areas, in exchange for landowners giving up some development rights and agreeing to specific stewardship requirements.
Navigating options
At the University of Maryland, Tully and Epanchin-Niell have been developing an online tool since January 2025 to help farmers understand their options for responding to saltwater intrusion. They are now working with Sharapi and White with support from the Accelerator to quickly adapt and expand that tool to help woodlot owners, too.
An initial questionnaire asks landowners to enter where they live and whether they have a farm, a forest, or both. They can also articulate their goals for managing the land, such as for timber, agriculture, hunting, or land preservation. Based on their answers, they receive a saltwater intrusion score that indicates which policies and programs are relevant to their goals and the stage of saltwater intrusion on their land.
In August 2025, as part of her dissertation, Sharapi led focus groups with woodlot owners and practitioners, including forest service and land trust employees in Dorchester and Somerset counties. The following spring, Sharapi surveyed another group of woodlot owners. Both exercises helped her and the team better understand woodlot owners’ priorities, future concerns, and awareness of support programs at the local, state, and federal levels.
“We really want to learn from folks who are experiencing things firsthand,” said Sharapi. “There are policies and programs out there, but it seems like this awareness of where people can plug in is lacking.”
According to White, “the burden is on the landowners” to seek out support programs. The new tool will help landowners more easily weigh options for alternative sources of income, such as converting a woodlot to cropland or putting land under conservation easements.
“The Accelerator team has been a constant thought partner as our project has evolved,” said Sharapi. “They’ve helped us frame ideas in different ways and think through the next step that will be the most impactful.”
With Accelerator support, the team recently hired postdoctoral researcher Greg Ferraro at the University of Maryland to analyze the eligibility requirements for policies and programs available to Maryland landowners facing saltwater intrusion. This winter, the Accelerator will also help bring experts on sea level rise and saltwater intrusion to Stanford to identify challenges and prioritize solutions across various regions of the U.S.
“All along, the Accelerator has emphasized the power of bringing people together on these issues,” said White. “We just want to help people make the decisions that are important to them.”
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