As awareness of climate change increases government agencies, non profits and community groups are working to develop strategic plans for sea level rise adaptation. To better understand specific choices for sea level rise adaptation we examined the relationship between current protective infrastructure and projected water levels from sea level rise and storm events.

Our analysis is based on three primary steps. First we reclassified the shoreline infrastructure data from San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI). We used the following dictionary to reclassify the data in terms of the Landform / Wall value: {'Berm': 'Landform', 'Channel or Opening': 'Landform', 'Shoreline Protection Structure': 'Landform','Embankment': 'Landform', 'Engineered Levee': 'Landform', 'Floodwall': 'Wall', 'Natural Shoreline': 'Landform','Transportation Structure': 'Wall', 'Water Control Structure': 'Wall', 'Wetland': 'Landform'}. We used the following dictionary to reclassify the data in terms of the Dynaic / Static value {'Berm': 'Static', 'Channel or Opening': 'Static', 'Shoreline Protection Structure': 'Static','Embankment': 'Static', 'Engineered Levee': 'Static', 'Floodwall': 'Static', 'Natural Shoreline': 'Dynamic','Transportation Structure': 'Static', 'Water Control Structure': 'Dynamic', 'Wetland': 'Dynamic'}. Additionally, for some of the shoreline protection structure sites we used google earth and site visits to shift their categorization from landform to wall. Second we conducted a rapid assessment of overtopping by subtracting the current shoreline heights from USGS’s projected future water levels. Finally we generated three potential shorelines. The first called “Edge_Current_SFEI” is based on SFEI’s Bayshore_Defense category with the values “First line of shoreline defense” or “Wetland on Bay shore.” The other two are based on SFEI’s Bay Area Aquatic Resources Inventory and capture the saltwater and freshwater habitat zones.