View SCCWRP’s full thematic Research Plan for Climate Resiliency (PDF)
2025-2026 Executive Summary
Climate resiliency refers to the capacity of aquatic systems and aquatic resources to maintain their structure and functioning in the face of climate change. As global climate change shifts environmental baselines and expectations around the world, California’s aquatic systems will experience pervasive, gradually intensifying combinations of environmental stressors that will fundamentally alter ecological condition and functioning; these stressors include rising water temperatures, declining dissolved oxygen levels, reduced bioavailability of dissolved minerals, sea level rise and storm surge, and hydromodification and flooding risks. While the root causes of climate change will need to be managed at a global scale, the aquatic ecosystem effects of climate change will manifest in a range of ways at regional and local scales. Not only will these effects need to be managed locally, but these effects also may exacerbate existing local environmental stressors. Thus, the actions that managers take locally will have an outsized influence in shaping the long-term resiliency of individual aquatic systems to global climate change. Moreover, the decision-making frameworks and strategies that managers use to optimize the climate resiliency of these aquatic systems will likely look very different from traditional environmental management paradigms. Instead of working to mitigate environmental stressors that are both triggered and managed at local levels, managers will be called upon to develop multi-decade planning and adaptation strategies – recognizing that climate change transcends all jurisdictional boundaries and is projected to intensify for generations to come.
SCCWRP is playing a key role in helping managers to future-proof the resiliency of local aquatic systems in the face of climate change. SCCWRP recognizes that climate change will require a fundamental mindset shift in how managers think about, plan for, and evaluate the outcomes of climate-related actions. SCCWRP is committed to developing decision-making frameworks, tools, strategies and case studies that facilitate the seamless integration of climate resiliency planning into routine management decision-making processes, with an emphasis on finding solutions that improve long-term climate resiliency. SCCWRP’s research is focused on addressing three main questions around climate resiliency: (1) How will changes in key drivers associated with climate change affect the long-term health/resiliency of aquatic ecosystems? Through this research, SCCWRP is evaluating trajectories of response in physical and chemical stressors, the risk to habitats and biological communities associated with these projected changes, and tools that relate risk to management targets; (2) What are solutions/actions that managers can take to help address climate change effects and ensure long-term health and resiliency of aquatic ecosystems? Through this research, SCCWRP is identifying and evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of a range of traditional, nature-based, and new technology options to inform more detailed, location-specific project designs and strategies; and (3) How can the effectiveness of management actions be measured/evaluated to adaptively improve the ability to manage and protect aquatic ecosystems? Through this research, SCCWRP is performing comprehensive assessments of the ecological, economic, and social benefits and potential undesirable consequences, as well as conducting tradeoff analysis and developing metrics to evaluate performance and inform adaptive management.
This year, SCCWRP will focus on developing climate resiliency indicators and evaluating multiple potential management strategies aimed at improving climate resiliency. SCCWRP’s focus for 2025-2026 will be on:
- Understanding chemical and biological consequences of ocean acidification, hypoxia and warming: Global changes in CO2 levels have the potential to affect the chemical and biological properties of the Southern California Bight and other West Coast ecosystems. SCCWRP is investigating how pelagic and benthic organisms are being affected by changing seawater chemistry along the California coast and how these effects will intensify in the coming decades. SCCWRP is focused on: (1) continuing laboratory experiments, field experiments, and historical data analyses to better characterize how multiple stressors, including ocean acidification and hypoxia (OAH), are affecting economically and ecologically important marine populations; (2) performing numerical ocean model simulations under contrasting climate scenarios to project future multi-stressor conditions along the California coast; and (3) applying mechanistic numerical models to predict how much aerobic and calcifier habitat has been lost to OA and how much is likely to be lost in the coming decades.
- Evaluating marine carbon dioxide removal and regenerative aquaculture solutions: SCCWRP is working not only to identify the adverse effects of climate change, but also to identify and quantify the efficacy of potential ocean-based solutions to offset and mitigate these effects. The potential solutions that SCCWRP is investigating include how macroalgal and bivalve culture and other marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) solutions could be used alone or in tandem to sequester carbon and mitigate HABs and OAH. SCCWRP’s research is focused on (1) representing these strategies in numerical ocean models to evaluate the potential efficacy that any given solution could provide, and (2) developing a framework to evaluate the ecosystem-based pros and cons of ocean-based solutions.
- Developing climate resiliency indicators and assessment frameworks for coastal ecosystems: Resource managers have responsibility for better managing coastal ecosystems in the face of climate change (e.g., pelagic and benthic habitats, kelp forests, estuaries, SAV beds, beaches, and dunes), including by prioritizing restoration and management actions and evaluating mitigation and restoration performance. SCCWRP is working to develop standardized protocols and assessment frameworks to help evaluate health and condition of coastal ecosystems, as well as understand the resiliency of coastal ecosystems to climate change stressors. SCCWRP is developing consistent, consensus-driven indicator assessment approaches that include standard metrics, operating procedures, and tools to understand what makes a system resilient or not. By understanding the resilient nature of these systems, SCCWRP will be positioned to assess the risk and vulnerability of habitats to climate change, which can better support coastal resilience planning, permitting and implementation efforts.
- Investigating nature-based solutions for climate resiliency: Climate change is affecting numerous physical drivers that influence the condition of both coastal and inland aquatic resources. Changes in temperature and rainfall patterns are affecting stream condition, while changes in sea level and seasonal wave action are affecting estuaries, beaches, and other coastal habitats. These global changes can either be exacerbated or partially mitigated by local management actions. Consequently, solution strategies are evolving to include combinations of traditional engineering strategies and nature-based strategies that work in tandem with nature features and processes to offset potential adverse effects. SCCWRP is working to investigate innovative, nature-based approaches for managing the effects of increasing stream temperatures, including green roofs, groundwater heat exchange, and various infiltration approaches. In coastal areas, SCCWRP is developing tools to promote the beneficial use of dredged sediment to enhance coastal habitats and help these habitats cope with erosion and degradation associated with high sea level. Across this work, SCCWRP is focused on developing multi-criteria evaluation methods that can provide more comprehensive consideration of benefits and risks, and help managers develop strategies for integrated solutions.
