Advancing Coastal Resilience Solutions and Science

California’s coastal communities face growing shoreline erosion and coastal flooding hazards, and these threats are expected to be exacerbated as sea levels rise.  In response, many communities are considering a variety of coastal resilience solutions, including re-establishing and restoring coastal habitats to enhance shoreline protection and resilience to these coastal hazards.  Designing and successfully implementing coastal resilience solutions requires better understanding of the dynamic beach and shoreline processes at play; the social, cultural and economic interdependencies between these coastal landscapes and communities; and how coastal resilience solutions (natural or engineered) could positively or negatively alter coastal resources.  An important component to building this understanding is expanding community data and monitoring of coastal changes, beach use and recreation, and related economic health dependencies.   

Projects

CALIFORNIA DUNE SCIENCE NETWORK
Nature-based approaches are appealing to many coastal communities, but relatively untested, and expertise is limited. This project collaborates and supports academic research and local practitioners with expanding expertise related to the use of coastal dunes and other natural coastal features for shoreline defense and coastal ecosystem resilience. 

CoAST SB: COMMUNITY ALLIANCE FOR SURVEYING THE TOPOGRAPHY OF SANDY BEACHES 
A community-based data collection and coastal monitoring program to help evaluate how local beaches, recreational uses and businesses rely on and are affected by extreme coastal wave and storm hazards.  As part of this project, the team is also investigating community science initiatives to develop monitoring approaches to inform management and adaptation of coastal resources. 

COASTAL USER AND ACCESS ASSESSMENT
This project will test and support innovative methodologies for assessing coastal visitation and equitable access and use, as well as economic valuation techniques for evaluating coastal response to hazards and positive or negative impacts of various coastal resilience strategies. 

WAVE RESOURCE RESEARCH 
A developing research project focused on wave resources, an important recreational coastal amenity, and how watershed and coastal management activities impact the quality, quantity, and potential use of surf breaks.  

Additional Resources 

Living Shorelines and Resilience in California - workshop summary 
SEA The Future