The UC Santa Cruz Center for Coastal Climate Resilience is rolling out a tool that lets planners and property owners see what areas may be flooded by the end of the century.
“For the first time we're able to pull these risk metrics and risk reduction metrics at the building-block level, so an individual homeowner will be able to scroll in and see their individual property and what is at risk there,” said Borja Gonzalez Reguero, leader of the CoSMoS Adapts project.
The flood modeling tool also shows the cost of damages with and without seawalls, dunes, and reefs. Gonzalez Reguero says cities will need to use multiple methods to successfully reduce flooding.
“Dune restoration, for example, comes out as equally cost effective than seawalls… it's not one or the other solution,” he said. “It's actually (that) they can work in tandem.”
So far, CoSMoS Adapts is available for Santa Cruz, Ventura, and Half Moon Bay. Gonzalez Reguero hopes to expand its reach throughout California, especially for smaller cities that don’t have the resources to do their own modeling.
In Santa Cruz, sustainability officer Tiffany Wise-West says the city will incorporate information from this new tool into their ongoing 30-year shoreline management planning.
“We're using it in our cost and action study, and it also has given us a more refined projection of what flooding might look like, and erosion might look like, over time,” she said.
Eventually, Gonzalez Reguero hopes the tool will give everyone an idea of how best to prepare for the future of the California coast.
The Center for Coastal Climate Resilience is one of KAZU’s many supporters.
