To some, climate change and the resulting sea-level rise just don’t seem real. But to those planning to build along Rhode Island’s coastline, environmental changes are prompting a very real list of new rules and policies designed to protect buildings from rising seas and intensifying storms.

A team of planners and scientists working on a new coastal-management plan for the Providence metropolitan area is proposing regulations that will require many buildings to be built on pilings and raised higher, depending on the expected life of the building.

The regulations will be based on an anticipated sea-level rise of 3 to 5 feet during the next 90 years, but they would be amended if new science shows the seas are rising higher and faster.

“We already have a vast investment in infrastructure that’s in places at risk,” said Grover Fugate, executive director of the state’s Coastal Resources Management Council. The new rules will seek to avoid putting even more infrastructure such as bridges, roads and sewers at risk.

Most of the fuel for southern New England is shipped through Providence, Fugate said. The area also is a major transportation hub. It needs to be better protected from storms, he said.

One proposed rule prohibiting fuel transfers during “significant storm events” was prompted by the dramatic fire at the Motiva fuel terminal in 2006. The fire erupted while a tanker was unloaded during a lightning storm.

At a meeting yesterday of representatives from various state agencies as well as the cities in the metropolitan area — Providence, East Providence, Pawtucket and Cranston — there were no objections to 14 new policies and actions that the CRMC will be asked to approve after a public hearing in May.

The coastal management team is recommending:

•Adopting an increase in the required first-floor elevation for new and improved structures in high hazard areas along the coast.

•Creating a standard method for determining whether improvements to buildings damaged by storms amount to more than 50 percent of the size or the value of the building — a determination that would force the owner to comply with more stringent, and expensive, building standards.

•Establishing a plan to remove debris that a storm would bring up the Bay and dump on the shores of East Providence and Providence.

•Tightening standards for structures built in so-called A-zones, where only minor wave damage would be expected.

CRMC geologist Janet Freedman told the group that the shape of Narragansett Bay tends to amplify storm surges from incoming storms. At the same time, much of the upper Bay and Providence River has been filled in the last several decades, so there is less space to absorb flood waters.

At the same time, redevelopment has put more people near the water and in harm’s way, Freedman said.

Inconsistent and contradictory policies and rules at the federal, state and local levels make it more difficult to reduce the impacts of storms, she said.

One example, according to Fugate, is the three methods currently in use for measuring the 50-percent rule on buildings damaged by storms. If a consistent measurement isn’t agreed to before the next bad storm, he said, the consequences will be chaotic reconstruction efforts.

Fugate said some scientists warn that if global ice sheets melt, seas could rise by 20 feet, and they won’t rise in a linear, predictable fashion. He said the CRMC will keep watching sea-level rise and be prepared to change its rules as necessary.

Another concern is increasing storm intensity, Fugate said. He said one study found that Rhode Island’s storm-water infrastructure is 25 to 30 percent undersized to handle water from intense storms.

The proposed new regulations can be found on the CRMC Web site. Comments will be accepted until Monday. There will be a workshop on the rules next month and a formal hearing in May.

Jeanne Boyle, the East Providence planning director, said she hoped the new rules won’t be confined to shorelines in the metropolitan area. She said she has seen some tear-downs and new house construction in Riverside, just outside of the metro boundaries, that are problematic.

Fugate said some of the new rules, such as raising the building heights and settling on a uniform 50-percent standard, probably will be imposed statewide.

Ames Colt, chair of the Rhode Island Bays, Rivers and Watersheds Coordination Team, predicted it will be difficult to keep revising the state’s coastal building standards if the rate of sea-level rise escalates.

But Fugate said the CRMC will review sea level figures every year, if necessary.

plord@projo.com