The Humboldt Bay area is experiencing the fastest rate of relative sea level rise on the West Coast. That's because tectonic activity is causing the ground beneath the bay to sink at the same rate that the ocean is rising. According to the California Ocean Protection Council's 2024 Science & Policy Update, sea level in the Humboldt Bay area is expected to rise approximately 1.5-2 feet above 2000 levels by 2060 and 3.9-5.5 feet by 2100. The primary impacts from sea level rise are increases in flooding, erosion, and rising groundwater. Sea level rise will expand areas vulnerable to flooding during major storms, as well as in the rare but catastrophic event of a major tsunami. The term 100-year flood is used as a standard for planning, insurance, and environmental analysis. But these extreme storms are happening with increasing frequency, in part due to rising seas. Sea level rise will cause more frequent—and more damaging—floods to those already at risk and will increase the size of the coastal floodplain, placing new areas at risk to flooding. To view sea level rise scenarios for the Humboldt Bay area, visit NOAA's 2022 Sea Level Rise Viewer and go to the local scenario for the North Spit. NEW! Now you check out our interactive map of two sea level rise scenarios for the Humboldt Bay Area! Featured are scenarios showing 1- and 2-meters above Year 2000 water levels. For many years, these have been static maps with no simple way for the public to examine points of interest. Now, people wondering if their neighborhood is at risk can zoom in on locations and see street names, etc.
California adopted new sea-level-rise guidance for local and state planners today.TLDR: It won’t be apocalyptic in the short-term, but it’s bad, and you should pick your path now.By design, the Ocean Protection Council’s document is more diagnostic than prescriptive. It doesn’t really say what to do about existing infrastructure like Big Sur’s portion of Highway 1 that keeps falling into the ocean. Nor does it mention the most foolproof — and controversial — way to reduce risk: “managed retreat,” or simply moving inland.Rather, it updates sea-level-rise projections, ranks their likelihood and suggests deciding what to do with coastal projects based on their importance and life frame.Some experts and environmental groups are concerned it doesn’t go far enough in offering managed retreat as an option.“It feels like a little bit of a worrying trend,” Laurie Richmond, a professor at Cal Poly Humboldt and a co-chair of the university’s Sea Level Rise Institute, said in an interview. “I’m proud of our state, and I think we’re real leaders on a lot of this, and there’s a lot of support for sea-level-rise planning and innovative thinking, but I don’t want us to backslide.”Keep reading
A new paper gives voice to the residents of King Salmon — California’s community hardest hit by rising seasDue to tectonic activity, the land around Humboldt Bay is sinking, amplifying the impacts of rising oceans. In King Salmon, the seas are rising three times faster than the national average. “It’s easy to think about climate change as something happening way in the future,” says Kristina Kunkel, who recently published a paper with Professor Laurie Richmond on her findings. “Like, ‘maybe we don't have to really think about it much yet.’ But King Salmon shows how it’s happening right now. That’s revelatory, for some people.”Given how few people had heard from King Salmon’s residents, Kunkel’s advisor Laurie Richmond wanted to ensure that the research wasn’t overlooked.
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Join us for the first in a special series on sea level rise featuring local residents who share their thoughts on the challenges and potential solutions facing our region.According to King Salmon resident Nate Faith, “If we don’t do anything, we’ll have significant flooding often enough that it may impact our ability to live here.”Many thanks to Marnie Atkins, Jerry Rohde, Nate Faith, Troy Nicolini, Adam Canter, and to Jessie Eden, who produced this episode with funding provided by the California Coastal Commission Whale Tail Grant Program.
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Huge coastal barriers could protect the world’s cities. But they’ll have unexpected costs.There are many kinds of coastal protection. Some of the most effective are entirely natural. Marshes, mangroves, and even sandy beaches can absorb the destructive power of waves, helping to soak up water and energy that would otherwise wreak havoc. Engineers can fortify a shoreline by replenishing lost sand, or by adding rock, wood, or concrete. It’s also possible to augment the shore. A rock pile that parallels the coast, shielding the beach from waves, is called a breakwater. A pile that juts out to sea, trapping sand on one side, is called a groin. All of these measures are already widely used on coastlines around the world.Hard seawalls may be the bluntest instrument in coastal engineering. Typically, they are made from concrete, stone, wood, or metal, and rise vertically from the shore. But a wave that strikes a seawall never breaks and dissipates, as it would on a beach; instead, it bounces off like an echo, its destructive force intact. In the end, the flow of water and sediment is a zero-sum game. For a wave to spare one place, it has to strike another; for sand to accumulate somewhere, it has to wash away from somewhere else.When I ran these critiques of coastal protection by Rachel Gittman, a marine ecologist at East Carolina University, she offered another reason to worry about seawalls. Natural habitats already serve as powerful buffers against flooding, she said. They absorb water and energy; this is why marsh and mangrove restoration is often the best way to protect a coast. By contrast, when coastal communities wall off the shoreline, they tend to trap ecosystems between the water and the wall, causing a process called coastal squeeze. “It can be a slow drowning of those habitats,” she told me. When they disappear, we may be more vulnerable than when we started.Keep reading
Join us for the first in a special series on sea level rise featuring local residents who share their thoughts on the challenges and potential solutions facing our region.According to King Salmon resident Nate Faith, “If we don’t do anything, we’ll have significant flooding often enough that it may impact our ability to live here.”Many thanks to Marnie Atkins, Jerry Rohde, Nate Faith, Troy Nicolini, Adam Canter, and to Jessie Eden, who produced this episode with funding provided by the California Coastal Commission Whale Tail Grant Program. 
