New adaptation tool identifies challenges and opportunities for baylands resilience
SFEI’s Baylands and Shoreline Resilience team helps planners, regulatory agencies, community-based organizations, and other stakeholders make informed decisions about where and how to implement nature-based solutions for sea level rise adaptation. The 2019 Adaptation Atlas identified places that are suitable for various types of nature-based solutions, including tidal marshes, mudflats, eelgrass, beaches, and oyster reefs. Our current work on the Baylands Resilience Framework goes beyond opportunity mapping, creating metrics to inform the development of targeted projects that increase baylands resilience to sea level rise. The Mapbook highlights metrics from SFEI’s Baylands Resilience Framework to help planners pinpoint places where nature-based solutions can increase shoreline resilience to sea level rise.
The latest product of the Baylands Resilience Framework is the Resilience Metrics Mapbook. We synthesized and summarized resilience metrics for each of SF Bay’s 30 Operational Landscape Units (Bay shore planning units identified in the Adaptation Atlas). By looking across metrics, we can help local and regional planners use their limited resources most effectively to increase bayland resilience.
The Mapbook was created in partnership with the SF Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, with prior funding for the Baylands Resilience Framework from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Google. Development of this product was informed by advisors including planners, regulators, and project implementers from around the region.
We launched the Mapbook at an upcoming SF Climate Week event on April 25, and we look forward to continuing to share the findings of this work with practitioners across the region. Contact our Baylands and Shoreline Resilience team via email to discuss incorporating nature-based solutions into adaptation plans and projects at [email protected].
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.
Our region faces an immense challenge in adapting to sea level rise. Without action, the San Francisco Bay Area (Bay Area) risks losing shoreline habitats and the critical services they provide, from flood protection to wildlife support to carbon sequestration.