Tools being developed to evaluate resiliency of coastal wetlands to sea level rise

SCCWRP and its partners have begun developing a set of regional assessment tools to evaluate the resiliency of Southern California’s coastal wetlands to sea level rise – a project that will help inform wetland managers’ long-term coastal resiliency planning efforts.

The project, which kicked off in May, builds on a standardized, statewide framework co-developed by SCCWRP for monitoring the ecological health of coastal estuaries. This estuarine assessment framework already has been incorporated into California’s new Estuary Marine Protected Areas (MPA) Monitoring Program.

Unlike the estuarine MPA assessment framework, the new tools will focus specifically on evaluating the vulnerability of Southern California’s low-lying coastal estuaries to future sea level rise.

With these insights, managers will be able to make informed decisions about how to prioritize long-term restoration and protection actions that optimally promote coastal wetland resiliency across Southern California.