Released on March 26, Adapting to Rising Tides: Bay Area compares the effects of rising waters on communities, natural lands and critical regional systems. “Shoreline flooding from sea level rise and storm events will impact everyone in the Bay Area because the transportation systems we rely on, schools, childcare, and hospitals we depend on, jobs at which we work, and beautiful natural areas we love are at risk, and interconnected across the Bay,” says Dana Brechwald of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. BCDC developed the report together with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission/Association of Bay Area Governments and the Bay Area Regional Collaborative, using funding from Caltrans and the Bay Area Toll Authority. “We needed a study that showed us where the region is most vulnerable and how those vulnerabilities will be felt region-wide and beyond.” The report includes 13 cases studies of specific locations around the Bay, as well as four Regional Systems Assessments on transportation, vulnerable communities, future growth areas and natural lands. The report does not prescribe specific responses to sea level rise; rather it “provides a better understanding of where we are vulnerable and lays out a pathway to start planning for the future,” says Brechwald. (For an exploration of the various ways Bay and Delta counties are responding to climate change and sea level rise, keep an eye out for the June 2020 issue of Estuary Magazine.)
The results are alarming for our state’s future: an estimated four to five feet of sea level rise and loss of one to two-thirds of Southern California beaches by 2100, a 50 percent increase in wildfires over 25,000 acres, stronger and longer heat waves, and infrastructure like airports, wastewater treatment plants, rail and roadways increasingly likely to suffer flooding.