A new land conservation designation spanning 3 million acres of Virginia will help military installations, including seven in Hampton Roads, prepare for climate change.

The Sentinel Landscape Partnership announced Monday that more than 4,600 square miles of land, rivers, estuaries and shoreline are now eligible for funding and programs. Dubbed the “Tidewater Sentinel Landscape,” the designation connects Hampton Roads with the Potomac landscape to the north and the Eastern North Carolina landscape to the south.

The addition of the Tidewater region creates a unified “Virginia Security Corridor” and will enable area military installations to conserve land around high-priority defense properties.

Zack Greenberg, an officer for The Pew Charitable Trusts, began working on the project three years ago after the Department of Defense reported more than two-thirds of the military’s operationally critical installations are threatened by climate change.

The defense department has concluded that multiple Hampton Roads installations are vulnerable to recurrent flooding as a result of climate change.

“DOD installations are not islands — they are part of the fabric of the community. And if there is flooding that impacts the ability to get on and off base, that creates a national security issue,” Greenberg said.

And the effects of climate change are worsening, Greenberg said.

“Hampton Roads is facing one of the highest rates of sea level rise on the east coast. It is also facing more frequent and more severe storms. … This region is also sinking by as much of a quarter-inch per year due to subsidence. Coupled with climate change, this could be devastating for communities in this region,” Greenberg said.

In being included in the Sentinel Landscape Partnership, a coalition of federal, state and local governments, as well as nongovernmental organizations and private landowners, can collaborate to identify vulnerable areas and generate projects to reduce the vulnerability in Hampton Roads.

“It’s about getting to work. It’s about accessing community facilities like hospitals or schools. It’s about managing stormwater — so mitigating flood events and maintaining water quality. It’s also about utility services — people need power and water and so does the military. And when you think about all that holistically, there’s a really big coordination challenge there. But that’s exactly what the Sentinel Landscape Partnership is trying to get at,” Greenberg said.

The next step is to bring in coordinators to identify vulnerabilities as well as funding opportunities to make project concepts a reality, and do community outreach. Approximately three-quarters of the Virginia Security Corridor is privately owned.

“The idea of the coordinators is to work collaboratively both outside the fence but also in coordination with the military, so that the needs of the community and the military are being met,” Greenberg said.

According to Greenberg, the defense department has identified several hundred miles of roads across the region that are critical for service members.

“If those roads are flooded and personnel can’t move appropriately, that becomes a national security issue for the military. .. But in Hampton Roads with the concentration of personnel, there is an ingrained investment. National security is climate resiliency is climate security,” Greenberg said.

Included in the Tidewater Sentinel Landscape are seven Hampton Roads installations:

• Naval Weapons Station Yorktown

• Joint Base Langley-Eustis

• Naval Station Norfolk

• Naval Support Activity Hampton Roads

• Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story

• Naval Air Station Oceana (includes Dam Neck Annex, Naval Auxiliary Landing Field Fentress)

• Naval Support Activity Northwest Annex

caitlyn.burchett@virginiamedia.com

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