Coastal Access
The coasts belong to us all, but not everyone has equal access. Through a variety of projects, we are studying Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) issues and solutions for coastal access, in California and elsewhere.
Coastal Access Equity
The coast belongs to all of us and is held in trust by the state for the public to use and enjoy. But our ability to do so is predicated on our ability to access it—and not everyone has the same amount of access. Understanding coastal access and its availability will become increasingly important as California and other coastal societies face ever-growing pressures from climate change and coastal development. In an ongoing series of collaborations with GIS researchers, geomorphologists, and coastal policy wonks, we are analyzing the distribution of coastal access points, different demographic groups of Californians, and projections of environmental change to measure inequities in "access to access," to understand the implications of climate change for environmental justice, and to generate management-relevant policy recommendations to address these issues. Coastal development and climate change combined with shifting populations and management priorities will continue to shape the landscape of coastal access in California and elsewhere, making this a compelling topic for further inquiry.
Sea level rise impacts on coastal access.
Patsch K & Reineman DR. 2024. Shore & Beach 92(2): 26-32. (view article)
Abstract. Climate change and associated sea level rise (SLR) will have substantial impacts on coastlines worldwide, threatening beaches, infrastructure, economies, and communities. In California, communities and individuals rely on the state’s public coastal access to physically reach and use the beaches and nearshore waters. Such use constitutes a key component of the state’s ocean-dependent coastal tourism and recreation secor, and contributes significantly to state and local economies, coastal culture, and individual’s coastal attachment. This study investigates the impacts of SLR on coastal access, first by using geospatial tools to develop a higher resolution database of the location and elevation of coastal access sites (opportunities, amenities, and facilities, including parking) at various coastal access sites statewide. Then, using the Coastal Storm Modeling System (CoSMoS) SLR run-up model, we project the loss of coastal access opportunities due to SLR. We find that impacts to coastal access increase incrementally with SLR and vary widely by access feature type and location, with larger impacts accruing more rapidly in the southern half of the state. We project that access to California’s shoreline will drown at the rate of approximately 100 access opportunities per 1 foot of SLR. Losses of coastal access will impact individual communities and groups differently and are sensitive to the effects of different strategies designed to manage coastlines in the face of rising sea levels.
One of the key contributions of this paper are a set of data dashboards that anyone can use to examine the distribution and vulnerability (to SLR) of coastal access opportunities and amenities in their community:
Beach Sustainability Assessment: The development and utility of an interdisciplinary approach to sandy beach monitoring.
Patsch K, King P, Reineman DR, Jenkins S, Steele C, Gaston E, Anderson S. Journal of Coastal Research 37(6): 1130-1157. (view article)
Abstract. Sandy beaches are valued for various ecosystem services but are increasingly imperiled by anthropogenic stressors. Sea-level rise (SLR), reductions to sand supply, hardening the position of the coastline, and the prevalence of human development along California's coast combine to reduce the fundamental dynamism critical to the resilience of California's beaches. If California continues with business as usual, many of its beaches will erode and eventually disappear. Coastal jurisdictions in California are planning for SLR. However, these coastal managers lack a standardized regional assessment tool that compiles information on the current and likely future condition of sandy beaches. Without such a tool, these managers have limited ability to analyze the integrated impacts of historic decisions or future alternative management scenarios upon beach morphology, ecological functioning, economics, and social utility. This paper presents a study of the Beach Sustainability Assessment (BSA) decision support tool applied to 17 beaches spanning Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles counties. In addition to scoring and grading geomorphological, ecological functioning, and social utility components, the BSA provides a single, overall grade for each beach. To demonstrate the utility of the BSA, a scenario with 1 m of SLR and a 100-year storm was simulated to assess the changes to the overall grade and component grades. The BSA offers a cost-effective, standardized protocol to monitor the condition of California's sandy beach ecosystems. The metrics support spatial and temporal comparisons on a regional scale, giving coastal managers and stakeholders the ability to assess real trade-offs among management solutions. Current BSA indices indicate that beaches in the Southern California Bight study area are already struggling, with most urban beaches receiving Cs and Ds for ecological functioning. The SLR stressor test indicates that ecological functioning and social utility will continue to decline with increasing sea levels.
Coastal access equity and the implementation of the California Coastal Act.
Reineman DR, Wedding LM, Hartge E, McEnery W, & Reiblich J. 2016. Stanford Environmental Law Journal 36: 89-108. (view article)
Abstract. The California Coastal Act, passed in 1976, protects public coastal access for all Californians. In the forty years since the Act's passage, the state's population has nearly doubled with much of that growth occurring in the coastal zone, where the beaches and public trust shoreline are an important natural, open space resource. As such, they are beneficial to individual and community well-being. Inequities in access to nature (and other beneficial resources) are increasingly common. In this study, we evaluate and map the proximity of different demographic groups to public shoreline access points on California's coast. In so doing, we identify disparities in the availability of coastal access opportunities to different groups and show that, in general, wealthy, white, senior residents of California live closer to coastal access than other groups, while populous minority groups are significantly underrepresented in terms of their proximity to coastal access points. We discuss these findings in light of environmental change (e.g., sea level rise) and responses to such changes (e.g., shoreline armoring), combined with social factors (e.g., continued population growth) and policy responses to such changes (e.g., climate adaptation planning). Our analyses set the stage for further place-based study of disparities in public coastal access, including their impacts on specific populations, as well as mechanisms intrinsic to the Coastal Act for increasing coastal access equity in California through the Act's next forty years.
BSA-CAMP
With collaborators Kiki Patsch (CSUCI's Environmental Science & Resource Management Program), Charles Lester (UCSB's Ocean & Coastal Policy Center), Phil King (SFSU Department of Economics, emeritus), and Jose Castro-Sotomayor (CSUCI's Department of Communications), we are currently building on my initial work, combined with that of my collaborators, results to provide more management relevant insights as well as to include impacts from sea level rise. This project is funded by a nearly $500,000 grant from the CSU Council and Ocean Affairs, Science, and Technology and the University of California Sea Grant Program.
Our multiyear project, funded as the “Sustaining Beaches and Social Equity under Higher Sea Levels: An interdisciplinary case study of the Santa Barbara Littoral Cell,” began May 2021. Officially, we call it the Beach Sustainability Assessment - Comprehensive Analysis for Management Project (Visit the project website to learn more).
Quantifying the accessibility of California’s coastline.
Adkins, Z., K.B. Patsch, and D.R. Reineman. 2019. Poster Presentation, 11th Annual SAGE Student Research Conference, CSU Channel Islands, Camarillo, CA. (view poster)
Zach Adkins, one of my former students, conducted this project and presented these results as part of his capstone research at CSUCI.
In another cool study, colleague Wiley Jennings tested the ability of beach-going volunteers to provide reliable data about beach water quality:
Participatory science for coastal water quality: freshwater plume mapping and volunteer retention in a randomized controlled experiment.
Jennings W, Cunniff S, Lewis K, Deres H, Reineman DR, Davis J, & Boehm A. 2020. Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts 22:918-929. (view article)
Abstract. Among the biggest threats to coastal water quality are freshwater discharges. It is difficult to predict the spatial extent of freshwater plumes at marine beaches because processes governing mass transport in the surf zone are complex. Participatory science approaches could facilitate collecting shoreline data, although volunteer sampling campaigns can be challenged by data quality and volunteer retention. The goals of this study were to (1) work with volunteers to estimate safe swimming distances at beaches that receive polluted discharges, and (2) test whether informational feedback to volunteers increased retention. Forty-six volunteers participated over 12 weeks in 2019 by collecting 1452 salinity measurements at beaches near the mouths of two Central California freshwater discharges and completing participation surveys. These measurements resulted in 145 distinct estimates of safe swimming distances (D90), spanning a range of environmental conditions during rainy and dry periods. Median D90s were 150 and 100 m at San Pedro Creek south and north, and 490 and 330 m at San Lorenzo River west and east, respectively. D90 was significantly associated with adjacent freshwater discharge rate at both discharges and tide level at one discharge. On average, the odds of volunteers conducting sampling decreased by 4% (95% CI: 1%, 7%) with each successive week. A randomized intervention providing repeated data feedback via email to volunteers did not affect their retention in the study.
Read our Los Angeles Times Op-Ed: "California’s beaches closures offer a glimpse of the likely future. That should frighten us." (April 3, 2020)
What does the future hold for equitable access to California's beaches?
Access to public places was restricted due to the pandemic.
How was the surfing community affected by covid lockdowns?