Case studies of natural shoreline infrastructure in coastal California

A component of Identification of Natural Infrastructure Options for Adapting to Sea Level Rise

This report presents five case studies of the use of natural infrastructure to mitigate the risk of floods, storms and sea level rise in coastal communities in California. These projects are designed to give coastal managers a sense of the breadth of approaches to coastal adaptation and what it takes to plan, permit, implement, and monitor them.

Five projects that spanned the California coast and represented different coastal settings and corresponding approaches were selected for the purposes of this report:

• Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge Thin-layer Salt Marsh Sediment Augmentation Pilot Project
• Surfers’ Point Managed Shoreline Retreat Project
• San Francisco Bay Living Shorelines: Nearshore Linkages Project
• Hamilton Wetland Restoration Project
• Humboldt Coastal Dune Vulnerability and Adaptation Climate Ready Project