Maryland’s Climate Vulnerability and Risk Profile

Maryland has a diverse landscape, ranging from the beaches and wetlands of the Chesapeake Bay, to the rural and urban interior, all the way to the Appalachian Mountain subranges in the western part of the state. The varying landscape gives rise to diverse climate systems from west to east. Summers are generally hot, humid, and stormy, and winters are moderately cold (summers are milder and winters colder in the western part of the state).^{See footnote 1} Natural hazards and climate change impacts are also variable across the state. Major concerns include sea-level rise, hurricanes, tornadoes, thunderstorms, precipitation extremes, heat and cold waves, floods, and drought. The Chesapeake Bay has historically experienced sea-level rise beyond the global average, and is one of the most at-risk areas for future sea-level rise in the United States, due in part to local land subsidence. Relative sea level is projected to rise by about a foot by 2050. Increased sea-level rise, combined with extreme precipitation, is expected to lead to more flooding and saltwater intrusion. Extreme heat and summer droughts are also primary climate change concerns for Maryland. The state has invested in climate adaptation for agriculture in partnership with the University of Maryland, and flooding solutions through the Maryland Commission on Climate Change and state legislation.

Adaptation Governance in Maryland

Maryland has a robust governance structure in place to oversee adaptation efforts. The state Departments of Environment and Natural Resources oversee many efforts relating to resilience, but additional structures and positions have been created to help coordinate adaptation and environmental justice work, as described below.

Maryland Office of Resilience, Chief Resilience Officer, & Agency Resilience Liaisons

The Maryland Office of Resilience and position of Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) were established through legislation in 2022 and their duties were elaborated further in 2024 by executive order. The Office, led by the CRO, sits within the Department of Emergency Management and is responsible for coordinating across state government and with local governments to “build resilience to risks identified in the Maryland Hazard Mitigation Plan” and for developing and implementing a statewide resilience strategy. The Office also oversees administration of federal and state resilience funding, provides technical assistance, ensures effective state coordination (including to improve response after emergency events), and conducts public outreach and education. The Office is also directed to prioritize investments in vulnerable communities to address environmental justice goals. The 2024 EO also establishes Agency Resilience Liaisons for all Executive Branch departments and independent agencies. The Liaisons serve as main points of contact regarding resilience efforts within each department and provide input and expertise to the Office of Resilience and CRO.

Maryland Commission on Climate Change – Adaptation and Resiliency Working Group

The Maryland Commission on Climate Change (MCCC), together with its working groups, is a multi-stakeholder body that is charged with advising the governor and legislature "on ways to mitigate the causes of, ​p​repare for, and adapt to the consequences of climate change." The MCCC was first established through executive order in 2007 and directed to develop a Climate Action Plan that included measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for the impacts of climate change. The MCCC working groups include the Adaptation and Response Working Group (now known as the Adaptation and Resiliency Working Group), which developed the adaptation portions of the state's initial Climate Action Plan and continues to oversee adaptation planning efforts, and the Scientific and Technical Working Group, which updates and informs the MCCC on climate change science. The MCCC was expanded in membership and scope by executive order in 2014, and then codified in 2015. In 2022, the MCCC was further expanded to include additional working groups focused on different aspects of energy systems and resilience, and the workforce.

Coast Smart Council

Maryland’s Coast Smart Council, which sits within the Department of Natural Resources, is responsible for developing and overseeing siting and design criteria to ensure resilience of state-level investments and infrastructure to sea-level rise and coastal impacts. The Council was established by law in 2014. It developed its initial “Coast Smart Construction Program” (see Resilient Design Requirements section below) in 2015 and continues to meet quarterly and review the program and the state’s “coast smart” criteria annually.

Critical Area Commission

The state’s Critical Area Commission is responsible for issuing regulations that affect development within and preservation of the “critical area” — which includes the shoreline and lands adjacent (buffer areas) to the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries in the state. State law recognizes the state’s interest in “developing policies and strategies to better mitigate, prepare for, and adapt to the consequences of climate change along the State’s shorelines, including sea level rise, storm surge, precipitation–induced flooding, and other extreme weather events and to enhance the resilience of the State’s shorelines by identifying, restoring, creating, and conserving existing natural and nature–based features.”

Maryland Resiliency Partnership

The Maryland Resiliency Partnership — an interagency state-level group that works to better integrate floodplain management, hazard mitigation, and coastal resilience practices — has hosted meetings for local governments and community groups to inform them about programs and resources related to resilience. The Partnership’s website provides a central repository of information, tools, and resources on floodplain management, grants available for hazard mitigation, and more.

Commission on Environmental Justice and Sustainable Communities

The Maryland Commission on Environmental Justice and Sustainable Communities advises the state on environmental justice and other related issues affecting communities, including disproportionate effects of climate change. This Commission is responsible for collaborating with the Maryland Department of Environment to adopt a methodology to identify disproportionately impacted communities, develop strategies to address disproportionate impacts and build climate equity, and establish percentage-based goals for state funding that should be used to benefit these communities. It is also directed to host at least four community listening sessions annually in communities disproportionately impacted by health and environmental hazards, ensuring geographic diversity in selecting the locations for listening sessions and rotating meetings.

Climate Data

Maryland state agencies, such as the Natural Resources and Environment Departments, commonly collaborate with the University of Maryland (specifically, the Center for Environmental Science, UMCES) to inform the development and use of climate data for the state. For example, in 2020, the state and UMD put out an Ocean Acidification Action Plan, and UMCES updates state sea-level rise projections every 5 years. UMCES also has representation on the Maryland Commission on Climate Change, which publishes annual reports on climate adaptation and mitigation for the governor and Maryland General Assembly. The Maryland Department of Emergency Management and UMD’s Department of Atmospheric and Ocean Science also co-administer Maryland Mesonet, a project that delivers real-time weather data for emergency preparedness. Risk mapping is primarily provided by state agencies and their partners. The Department of the Environment hosts FEMA’s Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps (DFIRMs) and drought information. There is no state-provided heat mapping for Maryland, but the Department of Health does report on hospitalizations for extreme heat and cold. The Department of Natural Resources also houses the Maryland Coastal Flood Explorer, an online tool that maps historic floods and future flood risk using sea-level data specific to the state.

Adaptation Law and Policy in Maryland

Adaptation Planning Requirements

The state law formally codifying the Maryland Commission on Climate Change also incorporates the key requirements for the state relating to climate and adaptation planning and decisionmaking. The Commission is required to annually report to the legislature on the state’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change, including identifying any plans or legislative recommendations for the state legislature to consider. State agencies are also required to: evaluate their planning, regulatory, and fiscal programs; identify areas to more fully integrate the state’s adaptation goals into these programs; and report on these findings and recommendations annually to the Commission and Governor. Additionally, the Office of Resilience is required to report annually to the Governor on the status of state and local resilience efforts, which is to include 1-, 2-, 5-, and 10-year plans for increasing resilience in the state.

The state is also required to develop and update every 5 years a plan for addressing the challenges of salinization and saltwater intrusion that are worsening with climate change and sea-level rise. Maryland Department of Planning, in consultation with the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the Department of the Environment (MDE), and the Department of Agriculture, is responsible for developing the plan.

Maryland also has several mechanisms in place under state law to encourage or require resilience-related planning and decisionmaking at the local level. The Commission, through its working groups, is directed to assist local governments in undertaking vulnerability assessments and integrating adaptation strategies into local plans and ordinances. The Office of Resilience and other agencies are also responsible for providing technical assistance to local governments interested in developing their own local resilience plans.

Any local governments that experience nuisance flooding are required to develop a plan for addressing this type of flooding, and must update these plans at least every five years. Additionally, under state law, local governments in Maryland are authorized to establish Resilience Authorities in order to more efficiently take in (including through bonds and collecting non-tax-related fees) and distribute funding for large-scale infrastructure projects designed to improve resilience. While not required, having this option available to local governments can encourage more effective local and regional governance for resilience investments.

Resilient Design Requirements

Maryland requires the application of siting and design standards and specifications to ensure the resilience of state (and in some cases, local or private) projects to certain climate change impacts — particularly sea-level rise, flooding, and other coastal impacts.

“Coast Smart” Construction

Since 2012, Maryland has required consideration of risk related to sea-level rise, flooding, and extreme weather in the construction or reconstruction of state buildings and facilities, including a minimum freeboard standard of two feet above the 100-year base flood elevation for new and reconstructed state-owned structures. In 2014, state law called for the establishment of a Coast Smart Council within the Department of Natural Resources and required the formal development of “coast smart” siting and design criteria for state structures. The “coast smart criteria” were strengthened and expanded to include new state highway facilities and new or reconstructed local capital projects that use at least 50% state funding, following additional legislation in 2018 and 2019. Following these new legislative updates, the 2020 criteria also require that structures and highway facilities must be built such that they can withstand the storm surge of a Category 2 hurricane, and be elevated above projected storm surge.

Floodplain Management

The Maryland Department of Environment produces the state’s Model Floodplain Ordinance that serves as the benchmark for local jurisdictions’ floodplain ordinances. It exceeds the minimum standards set by the National Flood Insurance Program, including by the establishment of a flood protection elevation, which amounts to the base flood elevation (the level of flooding during a one-percent-annual-chance storm event) plus two feet of freeboard. Any new or substantially improved buildings and structures must be elevated to the greater of the flood protection elevation or whatever is required by the state building code. Local governments’ floodplain ordinances may only deviate from the state’s Model Floodplain Ordinance after review by MDE. 

Living Shorelines

Since 2008, Maryland has required the use of “living shorelines,” or nonstructural shoreline stabilization methods, in tidal wetland areas whenever feasible. This requirement was established through the state’s Living Shorelines Protection Act, and places the burden on property owners to show that nonstructural shoreline stabilization methods are not feasible before adopting an alternative (structural) method to protect the shoreline and prevent erosion.

Adaptation Investments and Funding

In addition to the laws described above that affect how state standards are building resilience, Maryland has created grant programs designed to fund resilience projects specifically, and has integrated climate considerations into other decisionmaking processes that determine what major capital projects are funded. 

In 2021, the state established a Resilient Maryland Revolving Loan Fund for the purpose of providing low- and no-interest loans to support local resilience projects. Local governments and nonprofit organizations are eligible to receive loans from the fund, and the loans may be used to help meet nonfederal match requirements for federal hazard mitigation grants.

In 2016, the Maryland legislature passed the Maryland Open Transportation Investment Decision Act of 2016, which establishes state transportation goals and measures by which the Maryland Department of Transportation is required to score and rank certain major capital projects for inclusion in the Consolidated Transportation Program (the state’s six-year capital budget for transportation projects) and Maryland Transportation Plan (the state’s long-range transportation plan). Increased resilience is among the performance measures used to rank and prioritized projects under the plan’s system preservation goal.

Statewide Adaptation Planning and Technical Assistance

Maryland’s statewide adaptation planning efforts go back to 2008, when the state developed its Comprehensive Strategy for Reducing Maryland's Vulnerability to Climate Change, Phase I: Sea-level rise and coastal storms, which was followed in 2011 by the Comprehensive Strategy for Reducing Maryland's Vulnerability to Climate Change, Phase II: Building societal, economic, and ecological resilience. Led by the MCCC’s Adaptation and Resiliency Working Group, the state has continued to revisit adaptation planning and in 2019 adopted Maryland's Climate Adaptation and Resilience Framework. Most recently, in 2024 the state has adopted its Next Generation Adaptation Plan (NextGen Plan), which builds on the Framework and heavily emphasizes integrating Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) into climate planning. The NextGen Plan is intended to guide the state’s adaptation efforts for the subsequent decade.

Also of note, in 2019 the state first published its Plan to Adapt to Saltwater Intrusion and Salinization, which has since been updated once in accordance with a 5-year update cycle. The plan examines several resources impacted by saltwater intrusion or salinization in Maryland, including aquifers, surface waters, wetlands, and agriculture. For each resource, the plan describes the scientific context, the current knowledge of impacts and concerns, additional research recommended, and potential adaptation strategies.

Multiple agencies in Maryland oversee technical assistance programs, and the state also maintains tools to help state and local adaptation efforts. The Office of Resilience developed the Maryland Resilience Toolkit as a centralized searchable repository for users to find state sources of technical assistance, grant and loan programs, tools, and other resources to assist in their adaptation and resilience efforts.

 This summary aims to highlight the most important adaptation and resilience efforts underway in Maryland, but it is not exhaustive. Other adaptation and resilience efforts may be led by other state agencies, localities, and private partners within the state. Source documents and additional resources, many of which are housed in the Adaptation Clearinghouse, are highlighted below.

This research was last updated on March 2, 2026.