1940s Aerial view of the south harbor beach, and the Nantucket Shipyard, showing three large storage buildings and two boat ramps. The large building in the upper right hand corner is the former Boys Club, on Francis Street. The shoreline to the right is now sand in front of the new bulkhead. (Courtesy of the Nantucket Historical Association)

1920s Aerial view of the Nantucket Shipyard, Washington Street and Union Street vicinity. Note the Old Mill in the center background. (Courtesy of the Nantucket Historical Association)

The Nantucket Garden Club's Saltmarsh Center native plant and coastal resilient garden is a conservation community project. Having grown and evolved here for thousands of years, native plants are well-adapted to living in Nantucket’s coastal habitats, can be more salt tolerant than non-natives and have formed complex and interdependent relationships with the island’s wildlife. (Photo by Theo Kinsella)

Coastal resilient landscapes are appropriate adjacent to beaches, dunes, coastal banks, waterbodies, or within areas prone to flooding. This demonstration garden features low-maintenance native plant species that have adapted to the climate and sandy soils of Nantucket. The plant material is hardy, strong-rooted shrubs, perennials, and grasses, able to tolerate both wet and dry conditions and occasional saltwater flooding. Once established, native species do not require watering, fertilizers, or pesticides. Their deep roots filter water as it flows into the harbor, and the plants support wildlife, including native pollinators, beneficial insects, birds, and small mammals. (Photo by WIll Kinsella)

Selecting Natives will: Save Water—Native plants are adapted to the local climate and site conditions. • Save Time—Less maintenance is required with native plants once established. • Reduce Pesticide Use—Native plants have developed their own defenses against many pests and diseases. • Enhance Wildlife Habitat—Provide shelter and high quality food for native wildlife. • Protect Nantucket’s Distinctive Landscape and Fragile Ecosystem. (Photo by Theo Kinsella)

A rain garden (pictured here on Mariner Way/Washington Street) is a depressed area in the landscape that collects rain water from a roof, driveway or street and allows it to soak into the ground. Planted with grasses and flowering perennials, rain gardens can be a cost effective and beautiful way to reduce runoff from your property. Rain gardens can also help filter out pollutants in runoff and provide food and shelter for butterflies, song birds and other wildlife. (Photo by Will Kinsella)

Rain gardens are a highly functional way to help protect water quality, but they are also gardens and an attractive part of the neighborhood. Native plants are generally adapted to local growing conditions plants, but will need to tolerate some fluctuation in water levels and be able to withstand both wet and dry conditions (including droughts when soils drain completely for extended durations). (Photo by Will Kinsella)

In contrast to the Envision Resilience projects, which are untethered to local zoning, policy and permitting regulations, the Town of Nantucket’s Coastal Resilience Plan includes a number of permittable near term strategies when proceeding through the existing local, State, and Federal regulatory frameworks. An example of a recommended project summary from the Coastal Resilience Plan, including the anticipated benefits, level of protection, priority, duration of performance, estimated cost, and potential co-benefits for each. (Coastal Resilience Plan, Page 151)

In the Spring of 2021 ReMain Nantucket convened a group of more than 20 local and regional advisors to bring expertise in conservation, public works, real estate, architecture, historic preservation, natural resources, marine biology, fisheries, civil engineering, art, science, and transportation to participating university teams. This interdisciplinary group provided resources and insight as the teams moved through the spring 2021 semester and examined the complex issue of sea level rise on Nantucket. During the 2021 Envision Resilience Nantucket Challenge, the student teams were untethered to local zoning, policy and permitting regulations and encouraged to design big and bold, as you will see in their visionary, out-of-the-box ideas. Though the designs may be far from shovel-ready, they created the space for our community to engage in more positive, hopeful and meaningful conversations about our future.

ReMain's 2021 Envision Resilience challenge gathered students from 5 universites to reimagine Nantucket's harbor for sea level rise. An example of “Nantucket and Coastal New England: History, Threat and Adaptation” by Yale University. The team describes their process as a spatial framework of adaptation in which they have tried to emphasize that adaptation over time is the project with one of the possible outcomes being some degree of resilience. (Courtesy of Envision Resilience)

ReMain's 20221 Envision Resilience challenge gathered students from 5 universites to reimagine Nantucket's harbor for sea level rise. An example of “Nantucket and Coastal New England: History, Threat and Adaptation” by Yale University. The concepts that come from this design studio include an insistence in the multiscalar nature of adaptation, the necessity of a multifunctional approach to adaptation (no single purpose engineering solutions) and an experimental approach with Nantucket as a laboratory. (Courtesy of Envision Resilience)

ReMain's 2021 Envision Resilience challenge gathered students from 5 universites to reimagine Nantucket's harbor for sea level rise. This is an example from "Dwelling on the Edge" by University of Florida. This proposal engages the site in order to address the difficulty of sea level rise by preventively establishing a module that is kinetically able to withstand temporary and permanent flooding. (Image Courtesy of Envision Resilience)