By Katherine Mueller
Staff Writer
The City of Manhattan Beach held a virtual seminar presenting the effects climate change and sea level rise will have in the community in the future, addressing possible precautionary measures and absorbing community input on Feb. 4.
The primary focus of the seminar was to analyze sea level rise and vulnerabilities from climate change. The seminar’s executive board includes environmental sustainability manager Dana Murray; Environmental Science Associates (ESA) project manager Lindsay Sheehan; and USC research and policy specialist Melodie Grubbs presented the effects of these vulnerabilities.
“We want to look at what happens if no action is taken,” Murray said. “If the city does nothing, what are the implications of that, that’s the vulnerability assessment.”
In order to get a leg up on sea level rise, Manhattan Beach may start working with the ESA. Manhattan Beach has recently received a large grant from the California Coastal Commission to fund work to prevent further sea level rise, according to Murray.
“We are trying to get the city into compliance for a state bill,” Murray said. “It will require all cities in California to put in sea level rise vulnerability adaptation measures and implement local hazards mitigation plans.”
Before the majority of the work is done, the city needs to update the Local Coastal Program (LCP) land use plan. It will assist the city in aligning its efforts to the upcoming hazard mitigation plan.
“The other reason we are updating is because our existing LCP is now 27 years old,” Murray said. “A lot of things have changed since then, and a big one is climate change in sea level rise. Currently, our LCP doesn’t address sea level rise and associated coastal hazards, so we need to incorporate the best available science in order to prepare.”
A 2017 observation showed that 60 percent of coastal cities in California had already updated their LCP’s. Hermosa Beach is currently ahead of Manhattan Beach in regards to this, but Manhattan Beach regularly communicates with other coastal cities such as Venice, Santa Barbara and Santa Monica for feedback on moving forward, according to Sheehan.
“We can safely say now that most coastal cities are in the middle of assessing their vulnerabilities to sea level rise or have already completed their assessment and are updating their city plans,” Sheehan said.
One of the main sea level rise hazards discussed in the seminar was flooding. Flooding can cause damage to coastal assets, including bike paths, businesses and housing, among other things. Things like storms, heavy rainfall and yearly “King Tides” have given specialists insight into how flooding can affect the beach, according to Sheehan.
“The important aspect of sea level rise is not so much that the daily tides are going to increase, but we have coastal storms on top of that,” Sheehan said. “When we have coastal swells and waves on top of storms, we are going to have higher water levels that are reaching further inland.”
Adaptation strategies for sea level rise can vary widely. Additionally, they can be lumped into green to grey adaptation strategies, in which green strategies utilize natural vegetation and habitats to guard against coastal flooding.
“On the other end, grey adaptation includes things like breakwaters, revetments and seawalls,” Grubbs said. “These strategies are typically more concrete; that’s why they are known as grey adaptations. It’s important to note that solutions moving forward can be hybrid approaches.”
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