24 C A L I F O R N I A C O A S T & O C E A N

Is California Preparing for Sea-Level Rise?

T H E A N S W E R I S D I S Q U I E T I N G

SUSANNE C. MOSER

“We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation, and

suffering,” said John Holdren, the president of the American

Association for the Advancement of Science and an energy and

climate expert at Harvard. “We’re going to do some of each. The

question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do,

the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be.”

New York Times, January 30, 2007

L ate last year, susanne moser

completed a survey on how coastalmanagers in California are responding

to accelerating sea-level rise. The survey wasdesigned to assist the state in identifyingwhat coastal communities need in order toadapt to impacts of global warming. She hasbeen presenting the results to uneasy audi-ences ever since. This article is adapted fromher talk at the Coastal Commission’s ClimateChange Workshop on December 14, 2006, inSan Francisco.

Let me begin by placing my study intothe broader context of what is happening inCalifornia. In June 2005, Governor ArnoldSchwarzenegger signed Executive Order S-3-05, in which he not only set stringentemission targets, but also asked for regularupdates on the state of the science of cli-mate change, how well California is meet-ing the emission reduction targets, and thestatus of “mitigation and adaptation plansto combat the [expected] impacts” from

climate change. The study we conducted for thestate on coastal managers’ preparedness for cli-mate change is a direct response to the last partof this request.

A year later, in the summer of 2006, Califor-nia’s Ocean Protection Council released itsstrategic plan. Several of its objectives and pri-ority areas speak directly to the need for thestate to begin preparing for climate change.These goals were reinforced in September 2006,when the governor and his colleagues in Ore-gon and Washington signed the West CoastGovernors’ Initiative on Ocean Health. Inshort, key leaders in the state recognize theneed to slow down global warming and getready for impacts we cannot avoid.

Clearly, much is at stake, and California’scoastal managers already have a difficult task athand. The state’s 1,100 miles of open oceancoast, and another 1,000 miles of bay coastline,are major attractors for development, economicactivity, tourism, and recreation. Managers arecharged with meeting multiple and sometimesconflicting coastal management objectives, rang-ing from ensuring public safety to protectingnatural habitats, to fostering a vibrant coastaleconomy. These goals will be increasingly diffi-cult to achieve as the risks grow from the com-bined impacts of climate change.

According to the latest study conducted forCalifornia, sea level is projected to rise by aboutfour to 28 inches over this century. As thisoccurs, we should expect species and habitatshifts (e.g., wetlands wanting to move inland butbeing hemmed in by development along theshore, a situation dubbed the “wetlandsqueeze”). In addition, experts expect changes incoastal storms (including possible changes instorm intensity, frequency, and tracks), increas-ing coastal erosion, more coastal flooding, andfaster cliff retreat. Rainfall and runoff patternsare also expected to change. These changes arenot just projections for the future; they arealready apparent. For example, more precipita-tion is already coming as rain rather than assnow in the winter, and as it runs off sooner,coastal communities see both more flooding andlonger dry periods with less water available inthe summer. This pattern also affects water qual-ity: a heavy storm after a long dry period leads tobig runoff, which may be heavily polluted withcontaminants from roads and fields; as it runsinto coastal streams and the coastal ocean, waterpollution problems become more serious. Scien-tists also expect a rise in coastal water tempera-tures, which likewise will affect water quality.Less oxygen in the water means less favorableconditions for all marine life that depends onoxygen, and so we may see more fish kills.

It should be noted that these are conservativeestimates. The relatively modest sea-level riseprojections mentioned above are based on theassumption that the ocean will rise gradually, asice on land melts down slowly and warmingocean waters expand. But that does not accountfor more recent science, which says Greenlandand West Antarctica may melt down much fasterthan we thought. Of course, if sea level will riseseveral times faster than we have witnessed inthe past, the types of impacts described above—in some sense already familiar to coastal man-agers today—will become dramatically worse.

In our study, we examined whether coastalmanagers in California are aware of these pro-jected changes, and what, if anything, they aredoing to prepare their communities to deal withthe risks and challenges associated with globalwarming. While the state has looked at basicadaptation options in various sectors before,ours is the first study to look at actual prepared-ness “on the ground.” It delves into the questionsof awareness, attitudes, capacity to use available

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Opposite page: At Gleason Beach,about five miles south of the RussianRiver in Sonoma County, several housesslid onto the beach during the 1998 ElNiño. Remaining structures are at riskof following them.

global warming information, and actionsalready taken to plan for climate change (or bar-riers to such action) in California coastal com-munities. The study was sponsored by theCalifornia Energy Commission and CaliforniaEnvironmental Protection Agency through agrant to the California Climate Change Center.

The responses we obtained reflect the state ofawareness and preparedness in the second half of2006. While I have done related research in nineother coastal states in the United States, this is theonly study to my knowledge that looks at whatlocal coastal managers think about adapting toclimate change. In my opinion, these local man-agers are critical to understanding “real” pre-paredness, because they are the ones responsiblefor implementing coastal policies on the groundand thus are at the forefront of preparing for cli-mate change impacts.

The AAA of Adaptationin our study we looked at three

aspects of preparedness—the Triple A of Adapta-tion: awareness, analytical capacities, and action.First, are coastal managers at the local level—per-mit officers, planners, water managers, civic engi-neers—aware of and thinking about the risksassociated with global warming? Do they knowwhat climate change really means? Second, ifthey are aware, how do they use the informationthey have? Can they translate scientists’ projec-tions into something they can act on in theirdaily work, in the decisions they make? We callthis managers’ analytical capacity. And finally, arethey already developing policies and takingaction? Are managers taking this information—such as the fact that flooding will get worse, andflood levels higher—into account in long-termplanning, in emergency plans?

In early 2006, we interviewed 17 federal, state,and regional officials—managers activelyinvolved in coastal zone management in Califor-nia, from agencies ranging from the Army Corpsof Engineers to the Department of Boating andWaterways to the Coastal Commission. Based onwhat we learned, we developed a comprehensivesurvey and in the summer of 2006 sent it to 299municipal and county coastal managers—peo-ple who do everything from issuing permits tomanaging stormwater flows, water quality, pub-lic works, and so on. About half the peopleresponded, which is considered a fairly highresponse rate for a survey. We received responsesfrom nine out of ten coastal cities and 90 percent

of all coastal counties, so the results give a fairlygood indication of what’s going on. The 18-pagesurvey sought answers to the following ques-tions: What are your current challenges and howdo you deal with them? What are your attitudesabout global warming? How do you think globalwarming and related impacts such as sea-levelrise might affect your local area? What have youdone to prepare for those impacts to date? If noplans are in place, what are the barriers to begin-ning to prepare? And what would you need inorder to act—more information, more training,or something else?

Awareness of and Attitudestoward Global Warmingto learn how aware managers are

of climate change, we asked if they agreed or disagreed with various statements. For exam-ple,“Global warming is already happening now.”Over 90 percent responded that they “agreed”or “agreed strongly” with this statement. Thisanswer reflects a very high level of awarenessabout this issue, a level I have not seen in otherstates.

As another way to gauge attitudes towardglobal warming, we asked: “What is your per-sonal level of concern about global warming?”About 80 percent responded that they are “veryconcerned” or “concerned,” again signaling anexceptionally high level of concern.

Next we asked: “What are your attitudestoward preparing for the impacts of globalwarming?” We found that the vast majority, overtwo-thirds of respondents, are ready to preparefor the most likely climate-change scenariobased on the best available scientific informa-tion. A few percent of respondents said they arewilling, in all of their decisions, to prepare forthings getting worse; about a third said, “I wantleadership from on top” or “I can’t deal with thisbecause I have too much else on my plate;” andapproximately 15 percent stated that they would“rather wait to act until they get better informa-tion.” Those unwilling to take action right nowmake up an important segment of the popula-tion, but overall we found that a significantmajority of coastal managers in this state arevery concerned and ready to act.

We then asked respondents how informed theyfelt about global warming. The vast majority saidthey are “moderately well” informed. When weprobed a bit, we learned that people basically gettheir knowledge about global warming from the

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news media—the papers and TV news. Very fewsaid they are very well informed and very fewadmitted that they don’t really know anything. Soalthough we found that people are concernedand ready to act, their understanding of theissues is somewhat superficial.

Translating Science into Information for Decision-Makingunder the second a of the triple a

of Adaptation, analytical capacity, we tried tofind out whether managers were capable oftranslating technical information into “usablescience” for decision-making. We began by ask-ing whether they have the information theyneed, and what else they might need, to beginpreparing for climate change impacts. In onequestion, for example, we gave several options:Do you want (1) short-term weather and sea-sonal climate forecasts, (2) regional climatechange projections for the next few years, (3)information about what is most vulnerable or atrisk in your community, or (4) locally specificprojections of various climate change variables,such as changes in temperature, rainfall, and sea-level rise? What our study revealed is that forcoastal managers, the most important type ofinformation is the vulnerability assessment fortheir communities: people want to know whatwill be most at risk. By identifying what is mostvulnerable, they get a better idea of what to doand what else they may need to secure their localarea against possible impacts. Managers are veryclear in saying, “I don’t want generalized fore-casts of warming for the globe. I want to know:Can I still meet my management objectives?How far back do I have to tell people they haveto build? How does sea-level rise translate into aretreat rate?” As a result, I highly recommendthat scientists and state agencies avoid the “load-ing dock” approach of providing local managerswith more and more information in the form ofreports and statistics. People need not just infor-mation; they need to know how to use thatinformation. They also want to know what othercommunities have done.

In addition, respondents clearly stated thatthey want to know how climate changes and theeffects these will have on the ocean translate intoproject-relevant timeframes—the sorts they dealwith on a daily basis, encompassing five, 10, 25,50, or at most, 75 years. With regard to floodzones, for example, they asked such questions as:

Do we need to remap our flood zones? Can sci-entists project how flood zones may look differ-ent under higher sea-level scenarios? Right nowthe state is attempting to update flood-zone pro-jections; however, this effort makes no attemptto project how flood zones may be altered as aresult of climate change.

We then asked about the kinds of tools man-agers use now to process information. Theanswers to this question are important becausethey indicate managers’ capacity to transformscientific information into something they canuse in their decision-making. We learned thatmanagers mostly use maps and GIS, and to a farlesser extent more sophisticated analytical orforecasting tools. The message here is that if wegive people fancy models and projections thatthey don’t know how to integrate into their dailydecision-making, they will be less likely to usethem effectively. Instead, the scientific commu-nity must translate technical data into practicalinformation, presenting it in formats that arealready commonly in use. For example, ratherthan providing a nice diagram of sea-level riseover the next 100 years, we must create region-ally specific maps and GIS layers depicting moreeasily observed events such as flooding, beacherosion, and cliff retreat. This presents new chal-lenges that scientists must tackle to link up cli-mate-change information more directly withdecision-making.

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Solana Beach

Actions Taken and Barriers toPreparing for Climate Changefor the last a of the triple a of

Adaptation, we asked what actions communitieshad already taken to prepare for climate-changeimpacts such as sea-level rise, or if they had not,what barriers prevented them from doing so.The responses were sobering: When asked if theyhad started to think about global warming intheir management and planning efforts, onlytwo counties, San Luis Obispo and Sonoma,replied that they have plans in place that con-sider the effect of climate change, and neither ofthese considers coastal impacts. Only one city,Berkeley, has such a plan.

Somewhat more encouraging is the fact that sixcities and four counties are currently preparingsuch plans, some of which will look at what sea-level rise and global warming might mean tothem locally.

More than two-thirds of the respondents saidtheir communities had not begun planning forthe impacts of climate change, and nearly 20percent didn’t know whether their communi-ties had any such plans. In some instances, wefound respondents from the same local govern-ment contradicting each other—a reflection ofthe all-too-common situation of differentdepartments not knowing what the others do.A lot of things could be improved if peopletalked more with each other, but of course, thatwon’t fix everything.

When we asked why individual communitieshad not yet begun planning for climate change,the responses were revealing. Fifty percent ormore of local coastal managers mentioned fivemajor barriers to action: insufficient localfunds, insufficient staff resources, no financialassistance from either the state or the federalgovernment, no legal mandate, and simply

being overburdened: “We have too many thingsgoing on as it is.”

An additional option on the survey was that“the science is still too uncertain,” but that didn’tfigure highly in the responses.

The pressing coastal management challengesthat currently occupy these managers includeinland and nearshore water quality issues, inlandflooding, species and habitat protection, coastalerosion, coastal flooding, public access, and salt-water intrusion. Because all of these will becomemore problematic with global warming, in somerespects climate change will just be bringingmore of the same. But because managers feeloverburdened as it is, they can’t even make thetime to find out that climate change and sea-level rise won’t bring something fundamentallynew, different, or “extra,” but instead worsen theproblems they face daily now. And, as our surveyrevealed, coastal managers already feel they havetoo few resources to address the issues they cur-rently face. In other words, they need help.Specifically, they need time, resources, and tech-nical assistance to begin looking at the growingrisks associated with climate change.

At the state level there are some agencies,including the Coastal Commission, that haveconsiderable expertise on climate change andwhat it might mean for coastal areas, but themotivation to act on that expertise varies. Someagency experts are as yet unwilling to tackle theissue of climate change because they perceive itas politically charged; others simply don’t knowhow. Although some experts, both in publicagencies and in the state’s research institutions,stand ready to develop the information thatmanagers need, generally speaking the scientificexpertise in the state is inadequately connectedto those who need it most.

At the local level, most people put out one fireat a time—or keep one house at a time from

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falling off the cliff. Nothing in their agency mis-sion or job description says they also need tolook at climate change. They will only start deal-ing with global warming impacts once thatbecomes part of their job description, becausethen it will be part of their responsibilities andthey will be accountable.

It is also important to realize that our results,though hardly encouraging, may still be toooptimistic. About 50 percent of the people towhom we sent the questionnaire did not reply.I think that people who have something to tell,such as those who have begun to act on climatechange, and those who are motivated to do anexcellent job, are more likely to respond to sucha survey, while those who have not yet takenaction on global warming are less likely to doso. Thus the summary here is probably too rosy a picture of the overall situation in coastalCalifornia.

Given that the scientific projections of what’sahead are becoming ever more alarming, whatcan be done to help those who are in charge ofdecisions about our coast? I think the CoastalCommission has an important opportunity totake on a leadership role by instituting an official

policy that makes climate change a central con-sideration in coastal development and manage-ment. Today, there are critical constraints onlocal coastal management that prevent bestpractices. As a first step, these should beaddressed. In addition, the Commission couldtake a serious look at those communities that arewilling to be the pioneers and take action. Devel-oping response options with those ready to leadwill be important, because those are the com-munities others will look to for answers later on.

Postcard to our Grandchildrenclimate change will have significant

impacts on a part of the California landscape thatis vital to the state—ecologically, economically,and culturally. I was recently in New Orleans andsaw with my own eyes the devastation inflicted byHurricane Katrina. I can tell you that the time forpreparation is now, not when the crisis is upon us.If you start thinking about making changes onlyafter a catastrophe hits, it’s too late.

People face many constraints that keep themfrom doing the best they can right now. Man-agers told us they want technical and financialassistance, as well as a legal mandate, or at least

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The outlined areas on these maps fromthe San Francisco Bay Conservation andDevelopment Commission show regionsthat would be submerged by sea-levelrise of one meter. At left is the FosterCity and Redwood City region, at rightis Oakland Airport.

an official policy. People want leadership. Theyneed these things in the face of ongoing develop-ment pressures and the demands of specialinterests. They need specific information, butthey also need help to use that information, andopportunities to exchange relevant experienceswith colleagues.

California is a national leader in addressinggreenhouse gas emissions—that is, in workingto reduce the pace and magnitude of globalwarming. However, top state leadership is lag-ging behind in its readiness to address theunavoidable impacts of climate change. Animportant public conversation about adapta-tion is yet to be had. Some may view a discus-sion of adaptation as a form of capitulation, asgiving up on mitigation, but that is outdatedthinking. The impacts we are already seeing aretaking place because of emissions we releasedinto the atmosphere decades ago. They are, in asense, a postcard from the past. What we dotoday should be viewed as a postcard we’resending our children and grandchildren, fordelivery 30 years from now. No amount of miti-gation today will diminish the impact of theheat-trapping gases we have already emitted. Wehave already committed ourselves to additionalclimate change, and will have to deal with thoseimpacts. Adaptation, therefore, should be seenas a complementary necessity to mitigation.There is no way around it: we need to start apublic dialogue that acknowledges these reali-

ties, and begin discussing how we will deal withthese unavoidable impacts.

Moreover, there is no way, given the increas-ing challenges we face from global warming, toavoid addressing some long-standing taboos:population growth and development pressuresin the coastal zone, for example, which placemore and more people and expensive structuresin harm’s way. Addressing this clash will raiseuncomfortable questions about long-termretreat from the shoreline, private propertyrights, the role of government in protecting thepublic from risk, and so on. The onus is on theCoastal Commission and other agencies to takea strong leadership role in protecting Califor-nia’s precious coastal resources and environ-ments, while maintaining a vibrant coastaleconomy. Some tough decisions will have to bemade. Such leadership will likely be unpopularamong vested interests in the near term, but itwill pay off in the long term—even in the face ofclimate change—if it allows coastal Californiato remain a cultural and economic magnet. ■

Susanne C. Moser, a geographer at the Institute forthe Study of Society and Environment, NationalCenter for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder,Colorado, has been researching impacts of climatechange for the past 15 years and seeking ways tohelp policy-makers and managers understandtheir choices and implement appropriateresponses. From 1999 to 2003, she was a staffscientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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Heavily armored shoreline at Del MarAvenue, San Diego