Reporting on the Health of the San Francisco Estuary
The Health of the Estuary
The State of Our Estuary evaluates the status and trend of a suite of indicators selected to represent ecosystem health in the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (the Estuary). It is the most comprehensive health report for the full Estuary, with indicator metrics quantifying water quality, fish and bird populations, tidal marsh and open water habitats, resilience processes, and human dimensions.
In 2025, the report was launched for the first time as The State of Our Estuary: a centralized, dynamic, accessible website for reporting on the health of the Estuary. The first three reports (2011, 2015, and 2019 with video) were hard copy reports. The website is aimed toward Delta and Bay Area residents, while also remaining a tool for resource managers, scientists, policy makers, and legislators.
A Collaborative Scientific Effort
The State of Our Estuary uses the best available science, contributed by dozens of scientists from multiple organizations. Ecosystem conditions are assessed and challenges are identified, so that conservation and restoration efforts can focus on solutions. SFEI designed, developed, and now hosts the site, while the San Francisco Estuary Partnership (Estuary Partnership) manages the site. We worked closely with Core Team, a Science Review Team, and a suite of Science Leads to develop and review the content. The work builds on a long term effort of the Estuary Partnership to assess progress in the Estuary through research, a biennial State of the Estuary conference, and an eventual collaboration with the Bay Institute’s pioneering 10-indicator Scorecard. Today, the scorecard provides a means for checking results against management goals for efforts such as the Estuary Blueprint.
Other Individual Contributors
SFEI Provides Science Leadership and Support for State of the Estuary Report and Conference
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.
Journalist Mark Prado's article in the Marin Independent Journal reports the mixed picture of health in the San Francisco Estuary. He writes:
“In many regards the bay is as healthy as it has been in a long time,” said San Anselmo native Josh Collins, chief scientist with the San Francisco Estuary Institute. “But some aspects of the bay are slower to heal,” he added. “There are sill longer-lasting pollutants in the bay, but they are not being put in the system anymore.”