Sea Level Rise Affects Marshes Model

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Sea Level Rise in San Diego: Local data to aid local decision making

Global climate has affected our ecosystems. Consistent sea level rise has already been measured along the coast of California over the past century. As sea levels continue to rise, decision makers will be faced with new challenges for planning, managing, and protecting our natural resources and our communities. To help reduce some of the uncertainty inherent with these challenges, decision makers will need data specific to our region to guide management decisions.

To this end, San Diego State University and San Diego Coastkeeper have partnered together to disseminate information to decision makers and the public about one key aspect of global climate change - how sea level rise will possibly change our coastal landscapes.

The EPA model, Sea Level Affects Marshes Model (SLAMM) was applied to the coastal regions of San Diego (see figure below). The model generated predicted outcomes of how our coastal habitats may change under various sea level rise scenarios. It is our goal to use this information to help guide decisions about how to adapt to sea level rise as we plan our communities for the future.

Mitigation vs adaptation: what is the difference?

Mitigation refers to efforts to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases. In practice this has translated into efforts to reduce carbon footprints and/or a focus on energy consumption and sustainability.

Adaptation starts from a different point - adaptation recognizes that climate change has already started to change processes on our planet and that communities should start to prepare and adjust to respond to these changes.

Figure 1: Portions of the San Diego Coastline incorporated into SLAMM. To view the model outputs, click on the name of the sub-region.