California Coastal Commission

Establishing appropriate restoration targets, tracking progress toward those targets, and determining appropriate adaptive intervention are some of the greatest challenges to successful ecosystem restoration. Addressing these challenges is often informed by the use of “reference sites” that represent relatively unaltered or historical conditions and conceptually can be used to provide context and comparison for restoration projects. In reality, contemporary “unaltered” sites have often been manipulated by centuries of cultural practices and “pristine” conditions cannot be defined. Moreover, in highly altered landscapes or where stressors are continuing to rapidly reshape ecosystem structure, few or no sites may be unaltered enough to serve as pristine or aspirational reference standard sites for restoration. To address this challenge, we adapted the concept of “reference sites” to a framework for developing sentinel site networks, which consist of sites along a gradient of condition. These sites are selected for long‐term monitoring to track ecological conditions through time, to evaluate the effect of regional trends in external conditions or stressors, and to document progress toward site‐specific goals and regional objectives. Developing a sentinel site network involves screening sites based on condition, stressors, representativeness, and feasibility for long‐term monitoring, informed by input from regional experts and stakeholders. The resultant network includes sites along a gradient of condition, geographical representation, and management that can be customized or regionally based on local constraints. We demonstrate the application of this process through the development of a sentinel site network for coastal wetlands in the highly developed southern California (U.S.A.) region. This process can be readily adapted to other habitats globally and may be particularly useful in habitats that have been highly impacted by human activities.

Sea level rise poses many daunting challenges that are economic, technical, ecological, social, scientific, cultural, governmental and legal. There have been enormous efforts to study historic sea level conditions, to analyze the main factors that have modified historic sea levels, to predict future sea levels at global, regional and local scales, to anticipate time periods for changes to flood frequency and erosion rates. While each of these efforts improves our understanding of possible future sea level rise the changes that might happen along the coast as a result, they also increase community uncertainty about what this will mean to their efforts to undertake long-term land use planning, to develop capital improvement plans for infrastructure and for future shore protection and recreational opportunities provided by existing beaches. The proposed presentation will discuss the various guidance reports that have been prepared by the California Coastal Commission staff to assist local governments in identifying and planning for sea level rise vulnerabilities. The presentation will also address many of the options that California communities are considering for sea level rise adaptation.Recorded Presentation from the vICCE (YouTube Link): https://youtu.be/-hXO0r79NKk

Sea level is rising and climate scientists project a rapid increase in the rise in sea level resulting from current greenhouse gas emissions and latent buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Coastal cities are rapidly coming to grips with the possibility that much of their critical facilities, infrastructure, housing and cultural and environmental assets will need to adapt to changing coastal conditions in the coming years and decades. Increasing sea level will exacerbate most of the coastal hazards that already plague coastal communities – beach and bluff erosion, flooding, inundation, wave impacts, rising groundwater, saltwater intrusion and other water-related hazards.. Discussions of resilience can provide a framework to help coastal communities examine and evaluate options for minimizing the consequence of the risks. Broadly speaking, resilience covers both efforts to minimize the extent of damage to a coastal community that results from a hazard event and ways that the community responds to damages and restored community functions. As defined by the US Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps), resilience includes preparation, protection, recovery, and adaptation. In California, coastal communities are in various stages of vulnerability assessment development and adaptation planning (For example, Regional AdaptLA, USC Sea Grant, 2015). Numerous tools and studies are being developed to assist with the planning efforts. However, few communities have enacted steps beyond planning. The Coastal Community Hazard Protection Resilience Index (CCHPR Index) is a tool that helps communities evaluate adaptation options in the context of their economic, environmental and social/cultural expectations for the coast. Since development of the CCHPR Index (Ewing 2015), it has been applied to several coastal communities.

People are drawn to the coast for its moderate climate, scenic beauty, cultural and ecological richness, rural expanses, abundant recreational opportunities, vibrant economic activity, and diverse urban communities.’ More than 70% of California residents live and work in coastal counties (U.S. Census Bureau n.d.). Over the last thirty-eight years, the California coastal county population has grown 64%, from about 16.8 million in 1970 to 27.6 million in 2008 (NOEP 2012). Almost 86% of California’s total gross domestic product comes from coastal counties (NOEP 2010).

ABSTRACT The use of dispersants in marine waters off California requires detailed foresight and planning. In an effort to expedite a decision to use dispersants and reduce first strike response time, the Region IX Regional Response Team tasked Californias Marine Area Committees to recommend dispersant approval zones. Each Area Committee conducted Net Environmental Benefit Analyses for their areas of responsibility, and from those analyses recommended dispersant zone designations to the U.S. Coast Guard and the Regional Response Team (RRT). All zone recommendations were approved by the RRT in July 2002, and development of the remaining elements of the dispersant plan began. Using primarily a model developed in New Zealand, the authors drafted a comprehensive dispersant use plan for the waters off California. The U.S. Coast Guard Captains of the Port in California reviewed the draft plan, and tested it during the April, 2004 Spill of National Significance (SONS) drill in southern California. The streamlined decision flowcharts, imbedded “Decision Boxes” and operational appendices with further instructions, forms and resource contact information, proved the California Dispersant Plan was a very intuitive and workable response decision tool. During the SONS drill, this greatly improved the ability of the Unified Command to make a decision regarding dispersant use, get the resources in place, and begin dispersant sorties within the operational “window” for dispersant use. It is expected that the same expedited and informed response process will serve California well during an actual oil spill response.

Abstract The demographic trends show that people of color, black, yellow, and brown, will make up the majority of the U.S. population in the next century, and even earlier in coastal states such as California. Dialogue between the environmental movement and people in these communities on a common agenda, has been limited. Such dialogue is needed for three reasons: (1) minorities often have a higher exposure to environmental hazards and impacts, (2) minorities have a stake in environmental decisions, and (3) minorities are a growing constituency, and without our allegiance, the environmental movement will be at a significant disadvantage in the future. The conflict over port dredging in the San Francisco Bay Area potentially pitting thousands of minority‐held jobs against the preservation of the winter‐run chinook salmon and other habitat issues illustrates the urgency for developing the dialogue between minorities and environmental communities. Coastal management programs will increasingly face these issues, and should be leaders in fostering a productive interaction between these communities by aggressively opening opportunities for minority participation or decision making, reaching out to minority communities through education, and recruiting minority individuals into the profession and practice of coastal zone management.

The proposal by California's gas utilities to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on the coast has generated five years of controversy, stalemates among agencies, and new state legislation, with no final decision yet in sight. Different perceptions of the public safety risks from LNG have played a major role in this controversy. How agencies viewed the seriousness of the risks depended on how close they were to neighborhoods that might be affected, whether they had LNG-related responsibilities or wanted such responsibilities, their experience with LNG and other hazardous materials, and the professional orientation of their staffs. The track record of LNG risk assessments is discussed, and some prescriptions are presented to make the LNG terminal review process more sensible.

and report on these various methods and on their application.As the editors suggest in their preface, better understanding of the processes of decision making with multiple objectives will enable those who must make such decisions to do so more intelligently and thus will enhance the likelihood of good decisions.The contributors are leading scientists and analysts from government, industry, and the academic world, and their papers (and the informal discussions that follow many of them) should be of interest and use to researchers, analysts, managers, and decision makers throughout the world.The editors have prepared an introductory chapter that provides a background to the papers and places them in context.We are especially pleased that the first volume in this series is edited by three IIASA alumni -David Bell was with the Institute from 1973 to 1975 and Ralph Keeney from 1974 to 1976; Howard Raiffa was its first director, serving from the founding in 1972 until 1975.We believe that this book makes a distinct contribution to the literature of systems analysis, and we are gratified that IIASA has been able to contribute to its preparation.