Climate Ready Kittery

Resilient Infrastructure through Collaborative, Nature-Based Design

The Climate Ready Kittery project is a multi-year collaborative effort to plan for and address current and future coastal flood risks at two important roadways in Kittery, ME: Whipple Road (Route 103) near Gate 2 of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and the Route 1 crossing at Spruce Creek.

Both Whipple Road and Route 1 are essential corridors for daily travel, emergency response, and regional mobility, but both roads are increasingly vulnerable to flooding due to sea level rise and extreme weather. Flooding along Whipple Road has already occurred during recent severe storms, and flooding at both sites is expected to worsen over time. Even temporary closure of these routes could cause significant disruption for the local Kittery community and the surrounding region.

Coastal flooding at Whipple Road (Route 103) near Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Gate 2 - January 13, 2024 (Photo Credit: Portsmouth Naval Shipyard)

The Climate Ready Kittery project aims to proactively envision resilient alternatives to the current designs of these two critical roadways to be safe, accessible, and resilient to future coastal flooding, while supporting surrounding coastal ecosystems.

SMPDC, with support from Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve (WNERR) and the Piscatiqua River Estuaries Partnership (PREP) are now working with a Collaborative Advisory Group (CAG) of key stakeholders including the Town of Kittery and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to develop draft engineering designs to help local, state, and federal officials plan future transportation investments in Kittery.

By bringing together local, state, and federal partners to consider both current and future flood risk at each site, the Climate Ready Kittery initiative takes a new, forward thinking approach to long-range transportation and infrastructure planning that will help improve safety, maintain reliable access, and support surrounding coastal ecosystems in Kittery in the coming decades.

Project Status

The Climate Ready Kittery project team and the Collaborative Advisory Group are currently evaluating conceptual-level engineering designs for improving resilience to anticipated sea level rise and extreme storms at each site. This includes:

Assessing how different options for infrastructure upgrades (ex. roadway raising) perform under future sea level rise and storm scenarios
Considering potential impacts of alternative roadway designs on traffic, utilities, abutting properties, and nearby ecosystems
Sharing information with the community and stakeholders about draft conceptual designs and gathering feedback, including via a Conceptual Design Public Forum held on June 9th at the Kittery Community Center

Get Involved!

Review the draft conceptual designs for Whipple Road and the Route 1 crossing, as well as other project materials, under the “Documents and Resources” section
Share your thoughts on the draft conceptual designs with the project team via our Conceptual Design survey - coming soon!
Sign up to receive email updates on the Climate Ready Kittery project here.

Background

In 2024, SMPDC was awarded a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) National Coastal Resilience Fund, supported through federal funding from the US EPA and DOD, to investigate opportunities to improve the climate resilience of at-risk roadways in Kittery through infrastructure upgrades that integrate nature-based design strategies.

The Climate Ready Kittery project builds on a previous regional coastal resilience planning initiative that identified these roads, as well as other locations in Kittery and across the southern Maine region that are at high risk of risk of coastal inundation due sea level rise and extreme storms. Climate Ready Coast - Southern Maine was a two-year effort led by SMPDC that brought together municipalities, community groups, and state and federal partners to assess projected coastal climate impacts and identify resilience strategies across ten coastal communities. That work helped define regional priorities, evaluate coastal hazards, and highlight the need for site-specific solutions, such as those being developed as part of the Climate Ready Kittery project.