Rising sea levels threaten California beaches. Here’s how we can help protect them

I recently returned from Kiribati, the low-lying Pacific Island nation that is projected to be the first country lost to sea-level rise. The I-Kiribati are people who smile easily, laugh often and dance before dinner. It’s difficult to comprehend sea-level rise displacing this or any culture, although our California beach culture faces a similar threat.

I visited Kiribati as part of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) program to train local governments about assessing threats to marine systems. As a scientist focused on climate impacts in California, I assumed climate change would be at the forefront of Kiribatians’ minds given the imminent threat of rising sea levels.

Surprisingly, I found that although people clearly understood that climate change is happening, many believed they had other, more pressing problems. Our 25 workshop trainees ranked pollution and biological resources as the biggest threats, with climate change a distant third. After living there a few days, I understood. Garbage is omnipresent on land and in the sea, and sanitation is lacking. And although Kiribatians are threatened by climate change, the daily impacts are not yet as bad as other more palpable threats.

This apparent lack of concern about climate change in Kiribati may be, in part, due to a temporary lull in large flooding events. In Feb. 2015, the country experienced massive flooding, with waves washing across the thin crescent-shaped Tarawa atoll. Then-president Anote Tong purchased land on Fiji for potential resettling of Kiribati climate refugees.

When I asked a Kiribati tour guide about this event, she drew my attention to a house nearly surrounded by water that had become an island during that storm surge. Cheerfully, she pointed out that its foundation continues to keep water out during flooding and that the current government is building sea walls to protect vulnerable infrastructure. Leaving is not necessary, she said.

In California, we also see complacency. Although we also understand that climate change is happening, we hadn’t experienced it much until recently. So far, we mostly have been spared impacts of sea-level rise and have benefitted from favorable ocean circulation patterns.

But change is coming, and quickly. In recent research with United States Geological Survey, UC Santa Barbara and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, we found that about half of California beaches and coastal wetlands will be lost by 2050. Extreme events, projected to be stronger and more common in the future, will dramatically change the coastline.

Exacerbated by higher sea levels, storm events will be particularly destructive when they coincide with El Niño and/or king tide events. The dry sand - where we put our beach towels and make bonfires and where endangered birds nest – will be lost first. This vulnerable foundation of beach culture and ecosystem habitat will become more and more crowded. Local governments must begin to plan seriously for this change.

By 2100, a sea-level rise of one meter will remove the better part of both Kiribati’s atolls and Southern California’s sandy beaches. The rising waters may also erase the foundation of two cultures. In Kiribati, the situation is dire. It threatens life, livelihood and national identity. The impacts are less severe in Southern California, but the foundation of our beach lifestyle has started to wash away.

The next big storm in Kiribati could render portions of the country uninhabitable. In California, we have some time to plan, but not much. The turning point for sandy beach loss is about 30 years away.

We will not be able to save all of Southern California’s beaches. But there’s much we can do by taking a long-term adaptive management approach.

To embrace a future with a thriving beach culture, Californians must draw a line in the sand. They must begin the hard work of selecting specific, wide sandy beaches to survive the sea-level rise and commit to allowing them to move inland by developing long-term strategies to remove obstacles. They must provide room for beach recreation, along with habitat for the unique dune and beach animals.

Decades from now, when we can sit on a beach blanket as our grandchildren build castles in the sand and hunt for dune beetles, we’ll be happy we did. We are lucky to still have options.

This story was originally published January 11, 2020 at 5:00 AM.