An aerial photograph of the York County coastline after a series of devastating storms in January 2024. (Image via University of New England)
A research team from the University of New England published a report Monday that showed the extensive coastal damage caused by the January 2024 storms, including the destruction of more than a quarter of coastal dunes along four beaches in southern Maine.
Will Kochtitzky, an assistant professor in the School of Marine and Environmental Programs, and a team of six current and former students found that beaches in Saco, Biddeford and Kennebunkport lost 28% of coastal dunes in the back-to-back storms that hit the state on Jan. 10 and Jan. 13. Their findings were published Monday in the journal Geomorphica.
“The data sets we collect are really unique,” Kochtitzky said. “We plan to continue our coastal erosion monitoring efforts to support coastal Maine communities in the years ahead.”
Dunes serve as the first line of defense along the coast, protecting homes, roads and wildlife habitat during severe storms.
The Jan. 13 storm brought Maine’s highest water level on record. Across the four shorelines the team studied, the damage varied with the most extreme loss resulting in dune areas almost being cut in half. The researchers also found that only 10% to 50% of dune volume was recovered nine months after the storm.
However, their work showed restoration efforts, including beach scraping and dune grass planting, to be more effective than taking no action. With severe storms expected to become more frequent, “restoration efforts may be essential for the recovery, longevity, and stability of dunes and beach faces,” the report noted.
The research team mapped the devastation using drone photography that produced two- and three-dimensional models. Their work provided data that can be used by Maine coastal communities to prepare for severe weather events in the future, according to a news release from the Biddeford-based university.
The two January storms, in addition to a third severe storm that ravaged the coast a month earlier in December 2023, caused an estimated $90 million in damage to public infrastructure across Maine. Earlier this year, Gov. Janet Mills signed a three-part proposal into law to improve emergency communications, create funding opportunities to make Maine homes more resilient and establish a new State Resilience Office to address flooding and other impacts.
Of the six students who worked on the project, four of them — Johanna Birchem, Bryan Corvelo, Tyler Janik, Ruth Ellis — are current UNE students. The other two students, Katelyn DeWater and Paige-Marie Merrill, graduated in 2025 and 2024, respectively.
The team gathered the data as part of Kochtitzky’s geographic information systems courses and additional research, which was funded by the Maine Space Grant Consortium and the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund.
The UNE students also created a website to share their research in a more accessible format.