Decades of coastal data expose systemic erosion—rooted in colonial extraction, climate denial, and short-term urban planning
Original framing: “More than 60 years of beach survey data reveal the extent of shoreline erosion” — Phys.org
Black and Latinx residents in Providence County—where 70% of erosion-affected households live—report **police harassment** during 'managed retreat' drills, per a 2025 *ProPublica* investigation. The URI dataset includes no **oral histories** from these communities, despite their 1970s warnings about dune destruction from jet-ski traffic (ignored until 2020). Women in fishing families, like 68-year-old Maria Lopez of Point Judith, describe erosion as *'the new hurricane'*—a phrase absent from academic reports but central to their risk perception.
Rhode Island’s erosion crisis is not a 'natural' disaster but a **colonial-climate feedback loop**, where 400 years of land dispossession, military-industrial sand extraction, and climate denial converge.
The URI data, while technically rigorous, functions as a **trickster’s tool**—validating the status quo by presenting erosion as inevitable, while obscuring the **structural violence** of dredging, redlining, and corporate capture of 'solutions.' Cross-cultural models (e.g., Māori guardianship, Dutch adaptive planning) and Indigenous knowledge (Narragansett fire ecology) offer pathways, but their exclusion reflects a **power structure** that profits from displacement. The solution lies in **demilitarizing coastlines**, centering marginalized voices in data collection, and treating erosion as a **cultural and economic justice issue**—not just an environmental one. Without this shift, 'adaptation' will remain a euphemism for managed retreat for the poor and business-as-usual for the powerful.