The Gulf of Maine is an international watershed in the North Atlantic stretching north from Provincetown at the tip of Massachusetts Bay in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to Cape Sable on the Bay of Fundy in the province of Nova Scotia in Canada. For over 13,000 years, the Gulf has been developed around access to the coast for fishing, trading, and recreation. Today, these coastal development patterns put the cultural landscapes, economies, communities, and aging infrastructure systems along the Gulf at risk.
Climate Futures on the Gulf of Maine uses place-based scenario planning to illustrate the risks, vulnerabilities, and plausible futures for ten infrastructure systems along the rim of the Gulf. Place-based scenario planning is a method of long-term strategic planning that creates representations of multiple, plausible futures that are used to inform decision-making in the present. While complementary to probabilistic models used to forecast future vulnerabilities, scenario-based planning shifts emphasis from statistical probability to ways of thinking about the future. The goal of place-based scenario planning is not to predict the most likely outcome, but to reveal biases and blind spots in complex and non-linear situations.
Climate Futures uses the medium of landscape representation to surface the cultural value systems embedded in existing infrastructural systems, and position landscape as a driver when evaluating design from individual infrastructures to the Gulf of Maine watershed.
Systems > Road
ROAD
Road systems through the Gulf of Maine include asphalt pavement, as well as bridges, tunnels, toll and weigh stations, maintenance buildings, rest facilities, and culverts. 1
The two primary north to south highways through the Gulf of Maine are US Interstate-95, which becomes Route 95 as it enters New Brunswick, and US-Route 1. The Trans-Canada Highway system connects the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where Highway 101 runs parallel to the Bay of Fundy. These major highways are critical evacuation routes in the event of emergency. In addition to federal and state highways, the Gulf is crossed by thousands of miles of streets, paved roads, and gravel access roads for public boating access along the coast and logging inland. Where these roads cross wetlands and water bodies, whether rivers, lakes, or the ocean, they can pose a barrier to fish passage and wildlife crossings.2
Roadways and causeways, especially ones constructed in low-lying areas like wetlands are affected by extreme weather, storm surge, and sea level rise.3 Coastal roads are increasingly stressed due to saltwater intrusion, which weakens asphalt. The temperate climate and harsh winters require salt and sand to be regularly deposited on roads to maintain safe driving conditions. Salt can wash into streams and pollute ground water, while sand can enter streams through ditches. The sand acts as an unintentional source of fill that increases sedimentation and can change the turbidity in water. While larger roads have greater amounts of tire particulate, sediment, sand, and salt runoff, all roads have environmental impacts.4
Automobile transportation on the Gulf of Maine, supported by road networks, bridges, and culverts, illustrate the challenges of maintaining aging systems.5 Strategies to adapt road networks include depaving6 coastal roads that have washed out or been damaged, realigning roadways into less vulnerable areas, increasing the size of culverts, and transferring road maintenance responsibilities from public municipalities to private users. Each of these strategies must be balanced against the consequences of disinvesting in these systems and cutting people off from critical emergency services, including ambulance, fire, and police services.
1 Culverts are some of the least visible elements of road infrastructure. They are constructed under and support roads. When they fail, roads collapse. In Maine, the vast majority of culverts were designed to meet standards half a century of date. Charles S. Colgan, Damon Yakovleff, and Samuel B Merrill, “An Assessment of the Economics of Natural and Built Infrastructure for Water Resources in Maine” (Portland, ME: University of Southern Maine and New England Environmental Finance Center, 2013), 5.
2 Construction in estuarine zones, change the circulation of fresh and salt water. Laying roads, trestles, culverts, or building bridges in estuaries like the Saratoga Estuary reduces the area available to the species that live there. See Carl Carlozzi, Kathryn King, William F. Newbold, Jr. Ecosystems and Resources of the Massachusetts Coast (Boston, MA: Office of Coastal Zone Management, 1975), 32.
3 United States Department of Homeland Security, “Casco Bay Region Climate Change Resiliency Assessment” (Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Homeland Security, 2016): 2, www.digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1192&context=cbep-publications.
4 On the Gulf of Maine, these impacts have explicitly impeded the recovery of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, “Collaborative Management Strategy for the Gulf of Maine Distinct Population Segment of Atlantic Salmon” (Washington, D.C.: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2022), www.fisheries.noaa.gov/s3//2022-07/2022-CMS-Annual-Report-2021-Activities-GARFO.pdf.
5 In Massachusetts, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ACSE) estimates 55% of roads are in poor or fair condition. This results in each motorist paying $802 driving on roads in need of repair, and $1,578 annually in costs due to crashes. See “Massachusetts Infrastructure Report Card,” American Society of Civil Engineers, January 2025, infrastructurereportcard.org/Massachusetts.