Nashua River Communities |
Resilient Lands Management Project
CLINTON | BOLTON
Bylaws for Wetlands
Introduction to Climate-Smart
Wetland Bylaw Provisions
Wetlands are invaluable in providing carbon storage, sequestration and resilience to the impacts of climate change including providing localized cooling, while simultaneously being extremely sensitive to these impacts themselves. Wetlands are particularly biodiverse, and biodiversity tends to confer climate resilience. Protecting wetlands from climate impacts is essential to protecting the other WPA and bylaw/ordinance interests. The existing eight interests of the WPA all provide climate adaptation and resilience benefits to humans and nature.
Climate change interacts with all of the existing WPA interests and corresponding bylaw/ordinance interests, and can act synergistically with existing stressors, such as pollution, land use change, hydrologic alterations, and invasive species. Additional provisions within the wetland bylaw regulations to help cover a broad range of scenarios (droughts, floods, increasing air and water temperatures, increasing soil erosion) will help protect wetlands under increasingly unpredictable weather and climate scenarios.
​
The table below provides specific recommendations for bylaw provisions that will integrate climate considerations into you local wetland bylaw.
Click on the Table below to view larger, download and print
This table was developed through a collaboration between the Nashua River Communities Resilient Lands Management Project* (NRCRLM Project) [which was funded by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs Municipal Vulnerabilities Preparedness Program (MA EEA MVP)] and the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions (MACC) Climate Conversations Committee**.
This team would like to thank all the organizations, conservation commissions, and individuals who have contributed to the development of climate-smart wetland protection bylaws and regulations, including the following information sources that this project team reviewed:
MassAudubon Bylaw Review Tool
Cape Cod Commission Model Resilience Bylaw Article
Metropolitan Area Planning Council Climate Resilient Land Use Strategies Website
MassDEP draft climate change 2022 regulatory revisions
Municipal wetland protection bylaws, ordinances and regulations from municipalities across the state of Massachusetts
The team would especially like to thank our funder, the MA EEA MVP Program, and the Central Region MVP Coordinator, Hillary King, for their support, without which this project would not have been possible.
​
​
*NRCRLM Project Team: Rebecca Longvall (Bolton and Clinton Conservation Commissions), Gillian Davies (BSC Group, Inc), Nathaniel Stevens (McGregor Legere & Stevens PC), Lauren de la Parra and Jim Newman (Linnean Solutions), and Keith Zaltzberg-Drezdahl (Regenerative Design Group).MA EEA MVP Regional Coordinator: Hillary King
**MACC Climate Conversations Committee: Whitney McClees (Fairhaven), Jen Hughes (MAPC & EEA), Sarah LaVallee (Northhampton), Eileen Coleman (Burlington), Gillian Davies (BSC Group, Inc.), Nathaniel Stevens (Arlington), and MACC's Executive Director, Dot McGlincy.
​