North Carolina Highway 12 spans the 16-mile-length of Ocracoke Island along the Outer Banks.
Along with the ferry that allows the only access to the beloved island, the highway is a key way to get around.
But more and more often, storms and high tides make N.C. 12 impassable, flooding the road from the Atlantic Ocean to the east and Pamlico Sound to the west.
The Cape Hatteras National Seashore worries about its ability to manage these critical transportation systems as climate change accelerates the frequency and intensity of storms.
Officials hope a new research project can help guide them on the best path forward.
The Seashore – an arm of the National Park Service – recently entered into a cooperative agreement with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to research how erosion impacts transportation on the island now and in the future.
Researchers are particularly interested in whether strategies meant to fight erosion problems may have inadvertently exacerbated them.
Ocracoke is a narrow barrier island, meaning its sands constantly shift with waves and wind. The dynamic nature of it makes it difficult to manage, Cape Hatteras Seashore officials said in a news release.
For decades, in order to maintain N.C. 12 and the South Dock Ferry Terminal, local officials have turned to strategies like protecting roads with tall dunes and bulldozing overwashed sand off of paved surfaces.
These practices, however, may actually contribute to “low elevations and narrow island widths that currently make transportation susceptible to disruption from multiple sources,” the Seashore wrote.
That research comes from several state universities that recently did computer modeling. The simulations showed that some coastal management activities — meant to protect barrier islands from sea level rise — can disrupt natural processes that are keeping the islands above water.
“Counterintuitively, the more successful humans are in preventing storm impacts, the less resilient the barrier system becomes in the long term,” Laura Moore, a professor of coastal geomorphology at UNC Chapel Hill, said in a news release a few months ago.
The team said their modeling has also shown that shifting away from activities like bulldozing sand “may allow barriers that would have become uninhabitable to rebound and keep up with sea level rise longer.”
However, the researchers cautioned “there’s no perfect solution.” Increasing resilience in one area – building a long bridge to replace part of a highway, for example – can affect erosion in adjacent areas.
“Difficult tradeoffs are going to be inevitable when it comes to managing the coast with the hope of preserving coastal living as we know it,” Moore said.
The National Park Service said the new, multi-year study will focus on figuring out how to adapt transportation systems to climate impacts while preserving the island’s natural processes.
They’ll also model the effects of continuing to maintain the existing highway location versus how the barrier island would migrate in response to other alternatives.
The stakes are high, officials wrote on the project website.
“The long-term habitability, accessibility, and utility of barrier islands in N.C. and beyond will depend on the management strategies that are selected and implemented in the next few years.”
A public forum on the project is scheduled from 1-2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 4 at the Ocracoke Community Center. Officials will hold a second information session next summer after incorporating public feedback and initial modeling.
