San Francisco Bay Shore Inventory: Mapping for Sea Level Rise Planning

SFEI is developing an online interactive map to support regional planning and assessment given accelerated sea level rise around the Bay.

SFEI and the San Francisco Estuary Partnership are proud to announce the release of the SF Bay Shore Inventory: Mapping for Sea Level Rise. This dataset provides a comprehensive and consistent picture of today’s Bay shore (up to MHHW + 10ft) for all nine Bay Area counties. The mapping captures features which affect flooding and flood routing (e.g., engineered levees, berms, embankments, roads, wetlands, etc.).

A recent story in the LA Times by Ron Lin underscores the newly identified threat that earthquakes pose to the San Francisco Bay waterfront. Under certain circumstances, the sea wall that currently protects the Embarcadero and its surrounding infrastructure could be dramatically compromised during a strong enough seismic event. The results could be capastrophic to a key driver of San Francisco's economy. And the fix to the vulnerability would be expensive at $3 billion.