Jeremy Lowe's picture

Jeremy Lowe, BA

Senior Environmental Scientist
Resilient Landscapes Program
Shoreline Resilience
510-746-7372

Jeremy Lowe is a coastal geomorphologist with 30 years of experience in tidal wetland restoration and sea-level-rise adaptation planning on the Pacific Coast and in Europe. Career highlights include designing sea defenses to reduce flooding in Venice, Italy; designing restoration initiatives for the Ballona Wetlands in Venice, Calif.; and authoring tidal wetland guidelines for San Francisco Bay, the Puget Sound and Lower Columbia River Estuary. He will lead the Institute’s initiatives related to rising ocean levels due to climate change.

Jeremy most recently served as a director at Environmental Science Associates, where he developed nature-based climate change adaptation strategies for San Francisco Bay and the Lower Columbia. He was the project director for the Oro Loma Ecotone Slope Demonstration Project, one of the first nature-based climate adaptation projects in San Francisco Bay. Born in Britain, Jeremy previously worked at the universities of Cambridge and Newcastle in England.

Related Projects, News, and Events

Sunset Natural Resilience Project (Project)

The Sunset Natural Resilience Project (SNRP) consists of six individual but related projects to increase the ability of human and natural communities to adapt to and prepare for the impacts of climate change. The projects will further the biodiversity goals of the City of San Francisco while making a dense urban environment a more livable and enjoyable space. San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI), will support the development of each individual project in coordination with project partners.

Where creeks meet baylands: opportunities to re-establish freshwater and sediment delivery to the baylands of San Francisco Bay (Project)

As baylands restoration and climate change alter the ecosystems of the Bay, novel restoration approaches are needed to meet growing challenges. Paramount among these challenges for the baylands is a projected lack of inorganic sediment to help wetland elevations keep pace with sea-level rise over the coming decades. One restoration approach that may address this challenge is to diversify the way that creeks are connected to baylands, returning those connections to the adaptive, resilient nodes of habitat complexity that they were historically.

Conceptual Understanding of Fine Sediment Transport in San Francisco Bay (Project)

Sediment is a lifeblood of San Francisco Bay. It serves three key functions: (1) create and maintain tidal marshes and mudflats, (2) transport nutrients and contaminants, and (3) reduce impacts from excessive human-derived nutrients in the Bay. Because of these important roles, we need a detailed understanding of sediment processes in the Bay.

Nature Based Solutions for Nutrient Removal (Project)

High nutrient concentrations can cause increased phytoplankton biomass, low dissolved oxygen, and increased harmful algal blooms and toxins, with detrimental effects on species and ecosystems. San Francisco Bay receives high nutrient loads mainly from discharged wastewater, but high turbidity, strong tidal mixing, and abundant filter-feeding clams have kept algal blooms in check. Following the historic algal bloom of 2022, regulators and managers recognize the Bay’s resilience to high nutrient loading is waning and nitrogen concentrations must be managed more proactively. 

Petaluma River Baylands Strategy (Project)

Historically, the Petaluma River Baylands were home to a large, complex, and biologically diverse landscape of tidal habitats, including marshes, mudflats, and open water. Some of the historical tidal marshes of the Petaluma River Baylands remain to this day, including the largest intact tidal marsh plain in the San Francisco Estuary. However, much of the historical bayland landscape has been diked and drained for agricultural purposes and urban development. Today, the Petaluma River Baylands face increasing challenges due to climate change and rising sea levels.

Sunnyvale Shoreline Resilience Vision (Project)

The Sunnyvale Shoreline Resilience Vision is an ongoing collaborative effort between a group of organizations deeply invested in long term regional resilience and interested in coordinating across their individual planning efforts. Members of the group are landowners and land managers along the San Francisco Bay shoreline from Stevens Creek to San Tomas Aquino Creek, the “Sunnyvale Shoreline.” The group is focused on adaptation efforts to address climate change risks including sea-level rise, extreme precipitation, and extreme heat.

Sediment for Survival report released (News)

SFEI worked with local, state, and federal science experts to develop the new Sediment for Survival report. The report provides a regional sediment strategy aimed at examining the future of sediment in the Bay and informing sediment management for the resilience of tidal marshes and tidal flats to climate change.

“Towards a Coarse Sediment Strategy for the Bay Area” completed! (News)

The release of “Towards a Coarse Sediment Strategy for the Bay Area” represents a step forward towards beneficially reusing coarse flood control channel sediment by outlining reuse challenges, and identifying incentives for participation and potential solutions.

Baylands Ecosystem Habitat Goals Project (Project)

SFEI's Letitia Grenier served as lead scientist of the Baylands Ecosystem Habitat Goals Project, which yielded a report called The Baylands and Climate Change: What We Can Do. The report is an update to the 1999 Baylands Ecosystem Habitat Goals, which for the first time set comprehensive restoration goals for the San Francisco Bay estuary. Produced by a collaborative of 21 management agencies working with a multi-disciplinary team of over 100 scientists, it synthesizes the latest science—particularly advances in the understanding of climate change and sediment supply—and incorporates projected changes through 2100 to generate new recommendations for achieving and sustaining healthy baylands ecosystems.

Special Study on Bulk Density (Project)

Sediment bulk density is the total mass of mineral and organic sediment within a defined volume. It is a key variable in many research questions pertaining to Bay sediment studies but one that is often poorly quantified and can be misinterpreted. The motivation for this report comes from a recommendation by Schoellhamer et al. (2018) to compile more accurate estimates of bulk density of Bay sediments to convert between volume and mass with a higher level of certainty.

SFEI's and SPUR's Adaptation Atlas shared by multiple media outlets (News)

The newly released Adaptation Atlas (adaptationatlas.sfei.orghas been making waves on several significant media outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, Politico, ABC 7 News, East Bay Times, and the Marin Independent Journal.

We welcome you to learn more about the adaptation strategies that might be best suited to your own "natural jurisdiction."

San Francisco Bay Shore Inventory (Project)

SFEI is developing an online interactive map to support regional planning and assessment given accelerated sea level rise around the Bay.

Resilient By Design: Science Advisors (Project)

The challenges of accelerating sea level rise and aging shoreline infrastructure are creating a once-in-a-century opportunity to redesign the Bay shore. Originally constructed with little regard for the Bay, the future shoreline can more successfully integrate the natural and built environments to make a healthier shore for both the Bay and local communities. New shoreline design approaches must incorporate the complex ecological and physical processes of our urbanized estuary while anticipating the future challenges of climate change and extreme weather.

San Francisco Bay Shoreline Adaptation Atlas: Working with Nature to Plan for Sea Level Rise (Project)

In partnership with SPUR, The Operational Landscape Units project, funded by the SF Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, will create a new way of looking at the Bay.

Science Support for Resilient By Design Competition (News)

The challenges of accelerating sea level rise and aging shoreline infrastructure are creating a once-in-a-century opportunity to redesign the Bay shore. Originally constructed with little regard for the Bay, the future shoreline can more successfully integrate the natural and built environments to make a healthier shore for both the Bay and local communities. New shoreline design approaches must incorporate the complex ecological and physical processes of our urbanized estuary while anticipating the future challenges of climate change and extreme weather.

Getting the Word Out about the Baylands Goals (News)

Letitia Grenier continues to work with partners around the region to get the word out about the new ideas in the Baylands Goals Science Update 2015. Getting the public and the sea level rise adaptation community on board with the many benefits of restoring and maintaining the Baylands is a priority in the wake of the release of the Baylands Goals Science Update in late 2015. With the Restoration Authority ballot initiative to be presented to voters this summer, there is great demand to hear about the value of tidal wetlands and importance of a healthy shore.

Sonoma Creek Baylands Strategy (Project)

The Sonoma Creek Baylands Strategy is a comprehensive high-level plan for landscape-scale restoration, flood protection, and public access in the tidal Lower Sonoma Creek portion of the San Pablo Baylands. 

The Strategy:

EBDA Sea Level Rise Adaptation Planning Project (Project)

Historically, freshwater was an important component of the baylands ecosystem, creating salinity gradients that added physical and ecological diversity to the baylands landscape as well as facilitating rapid vertical marsh growth. Today, the extent, magnitude, and seasonality of freshwater to the baylands has been greatly altered. This project brings together diverse stakeholders to further the conversation on using treated wastewater as a resource for a resilient East Bay shoreline.

SFEI Provides Science Leadership and Support for State of the Estuary Report and Conference (News)

The San Francisco Estuary Partnership (SFEP) brings together the estuarine community every two years at the State of the Estuary Conference and, periodically, SFEP also reports on the State of the Estuary, summarizing the latest scientific findings about ecosystem health. This State of the Estuary Report is the only place where a holistic view of ecosystem function is provided across both the Bay and the Delta. This year, SFEI provided scientific leadership and technical support for the report, which focuses on the ties between social and ecological resilience for our estuary.

The Adaptation Atlas, a new report by SFEI and SPUR, featured in the SF Chronicle and SJ Mercury News (News)

On May 2, 2019, the San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News described how the Adaptation Atlas offers an innovative map of the Bay Area to promote nature-based strategies that can better assist our region in adapting to sea-level rise.