Primary Goal Met

Secondary Goal Met (If Applicable)

Shock / Stress 1

Shock / Stress 2

Shock / Stress 3

Long-standing regional working groups, like the Shoreline Preservation Working Group facilitated by the San Diego Association of Governments and the Sea Level Rise Working Group facilitated by the San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative, provide resources, discussion outlets, and networking opportunities for local leaders to discuss coastal resilience and to support active coordination. These forums are essential for creating continued opportunities for strong project coordination, enhanced communication with funding agencies to align on potential funding streams, and amplification of best-available science. Maintaining and supporting existing regional forums is critical, as well as expanding opportunities and pathways for additional voices and partners, such as nonprofits and tribes and other partners in non-coastal municipalities, to join and benefit. Additionally, more capacity would enable existing forums to better and directly connect with other existing or emerging statewide and nationwide networks of practitioners and funding agencies.

Impacts from climate change often compound existing structural inequities and challenges that the most vulnerable communities already face everyday. Ensuring that our planning processes and approaches for regional resilience building are grounded in equity is therefore critical for success. Current regional forums, both formal and informal, offer pathways primarily for local, regional, and state public agencies to participate and provide insight and influence. As we expand implementation efforts, we must also expand decision-making opportunities to meet a broader set of community members, leaders and voices. All projects, plans and programs should include robust community and partner engagement methods and metrics that expand the traditional lens of “coastal stakeholder,” intentionally including communities that have been historically removed or disenfranchised from accessing the region's coastal assets, like many tribal and indigenous peoples. While many recent State grant programs prioritize projects that include tribal engagement, it is also important that we work intentionally to build trusted partnerships and opportunities to align with tribes that may not be federally recognized, or that no longer own coastal lands. Wherever possible, we should also ensure that opportunities, like the Binational Resilience Initiative, leverage community knowledge and expertise to ensure they work for our communities at scale.

Established in 2022 by Smart Growth California and Catalyst of San Diego & Imperial Counties, with leadership from the San Diego Foundation, The California Endowment, and the International Community Foundation, the Climate Funders Collaborative supports funder learning and collaboration to promote healthy, equitable, and sustainable communities in the Baja/Imperial/San Diego Region.

Philanthropies can play an important role in ensuring that policies and public investments benefit all residents, particularly traditionally underserved people and communities. The Climate Funders Collaborative focuses on building funder knowledge in a supportive, interactive and generative environment to collectively learn and enable action supporting critical climate-related issues.

The group focuses on intersectional issues relating to climate justice, as well as philanthropic and community-based practices and trends relevant to the region. Together, funders are working to identify new opportunities and areas of alignment, and activate philanthropic resources to support frontline communities impacted by climate change while uplifting locally driven solutions that build climate resilience and integrate a trust-based and racial justice lens.

As our climate changes, philanthropic funders face a knowledge gap around what’s at stake–surfacing the need to help the philanthropic community understand the policy levers and mechanisms that can help spur investment and impact. At the same time, as smaller cities and nonprofits face significant obstacles in accessing impactful government dollars, philanthropy can play an important role in providing initial resources to ease the glidepath toward larger public funds. Recent research led by the Nonprofit Institute, in partnership with San Diego Foundation, revealed that environmental nonprofits in our region rely more on philanthropy (individual donations, foundations, and corporate grants) and less on government and fee-for-service revenue compared to the nonprofit sector as a whole–in part due to capacity and technical support constraints. Communications tools are needed to help tell the story of climate investments being sound investments. Philanthropies also need support partnering with specific communities. For instance, there are early signs of new collaboration and trust building between philanthropies and tribal communities that should be fostered and supported.

The San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative, in partnership with The San Diego Foundation and the Nonprofit Institute, will educate local philanthropic leaders and also demonstrate best practices in philanthropy to catalyze the region’s donors and foundations around coordinated and impactful investments in coastal resilience. Increased philanthropic prioritization of coastal resilience can help scale community-driven climate projects that advance multiple benefits across community and the environment.

Across the region, various actors are collecting valuable data that measure beach width, tidal shifts, public usage, and biodiversity at different intervals, with different tools, and through different methods. Agencies and municipalities regularly hire coastal experts and scientists to sift through the available data, conduct additional research, and then guide project and funding decisions. These efforts can be streamlined through a data warehousing effort that aggregates and maintains comprehensive shoreline data across the region drawing from multiple sources, including institutional researchers, community data-collection efforts, and public agencies. SANDAG is an appropriate lead for this effort, given their leadership in establishing a Regional Shoreline Monitoring Program. This program measures the changes in beach width over time, documents the benefits of sand replenishment projects, and improves the design and effectiveness of beach fills. This comprehensive approach to monitoring the shoreline has already provided valuable data for the design of 2001 and 2012  Regional Beach Sand Replenishment efforts and helped guide the selection of candidate beach sites for replenishment. Supporting regionally-scaled and streamlined efforts will help accelerate projects, drive efficiency, and create more cohesion among data, advancing more impactful projects across the region.

Across the San Diego region, municipalities and public agencies struggle to develop coastal projects to improve livability, increase beach access, and keep up with climate impacts as they encounter risks and hurdles posed by California’s permitting processes. The many laws and regulations–crafted to ensure California’s coastal assets are safeguarded and available for public use and to protect natural benefits now and into the future–can be difficult and challenging to navigate, making projects expensive and uncertain. A typical coastal project can cost $3-5 million just to prepare the information required for a permit review process–not including the cost of municipal and agency staff time, political energy, and public attention. The San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative will explore opportunities to establish feedback loops for its members and partners with the California Coastal Commission and other key permitting agencies, where projects in development can get review, technical assistance and guidance earlier in the process, and help save costs and time in order to accelerate implementation.

Regional Beach Sand Replenishment

In most managed coastal systems, regular dredging and replenishment of sand is required to maintain the broad, sandy beaches that fuel recreation and tourism. With the increase of climate impacts, the pace and demand of replenishment is accelerating, as are the costs. SANDAG is inviting local municipalities to work collaboratively and share the cost of both the study and implementation of a coordinated effort to replenish beach sand across the region, from Oceanside to Imperial Beach. This effort would represent the third time the region has come together to shoulder the collective burden to continue sustaining beach building activities. The initial $200,000 commitment would initiate planning, feasibility studies, and economic analysis. These resources would identify off-shore sources for sand that ultimately would be needed as dredge material and strategically placed across the region's coastline. Following the proposed initial study, if the region moves forward with the project, further engineering and environmental work would cost approximately $3 million, with ultimate implementation estimated at $37 million, for which State and federal grants should be available.

Long-term sea level rise will continue to affect the extent, frequency, and duration of coastal flooding events: in our region, high-tide flooding events that today occur only a few times per year may occur once per month–or even once per week–in the coming decades. Sea level rise (SLR) scenarios help us plan in the face of uncertainty by providing a range of possible futures. Ensuring our communities have access to the best available science and data on SLR impacts and extremes will strengthen our ability to identify common SLR scenarios that public agencies, tribes, and coastal land managers can use to foster greater alignment across the region. Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and other partner institutions are working to better analyze and understand localized impacts and effects along our coast in response to sea level extremes. Through these efforts, they are working to create a more accessible database of possible impacts from SLR. This database will be utilized to create and evaluate potential metrics that will further aid regional partners in supporting more effective implementation of adaptation pathways and strategies.

Regional Shoreline Monitoring Program

Beaches and coastal landscapes are dynamic and constantly evolving. In the summer, many of San Diego’s beaches experience an influx of sand deposition, widening the beaches just in time for summer crowds. This comes following the winter months, where beaches shrink and feature a larger array of cobble stones. These seasonal changes are shifting due to climate change. Severe storms, flooding, and coastal developments all contribute to varying beach widths. However, the process of gathering data on beach width is currently dispersed and inconsistent, and is typically executed on an as-needed basis by community science groups, local scientists, and municipalities. Understanding beach width changes over time, and at a regional scale, will help municipalities understand their shared challenges, and greatest areas of sediment need, across the region. SANDAG is looking for funding to support a regional initiative, the Regional Shoreline Monitoring Program, to collect and evaluate data on evolving beach widths. If funded, this work would become available to communities and municipalities across the entire region, enabling a broader understanding of ecosystem-scale changes over time and helping to inform resilience strategies and projects.

The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) works with and supports local cities and agencies to meet their climate goals and has been a leader in supporting regional adaptation planning efforts. The Regional Adaptation Needs Assessment developed by SANDAG and the San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative in 2020 identified access to enhanced data and technical assistance as the greatest need to advance adaptation planning in our region. Additionally, the 2021 Regional Plan outlined the opportunity for SANDAG to develop a Regional Resilience Framework (Roadmap) that identifies a regional vision, roles, and ongoing coordination opportunities across agencies, sectors, and organizations. SANDAG has begun efforts to lead the development of this Regional Resilience Roadmap which will be composed of a suite of tools, resources, and supportive data that will aid local jurisdictions to advance adaptation planning and projects.

Comprehensive Vulnerability Assessments

Vulnerability Assessments are an important tool for planning, enabling communities to identify vulnerabilities comprehensively and to prioritize adaptation strategies that reduce risk and impact of climate stresses. Because climate impacts are often felt beyond jurisdictional borders, it is important that these assessments are geographically inclusive and based on the best-available science. Ensuring that our region cultivates a strong understanding of our vulnerabilities at scale will support efforts to align implementation of adaptation strategies effectively. Coastal Quest and California State Parks are currently piloting a project across the San Diego region to assess vulnerabilities. State Parks manages nearly one-quarter of the state’s coastline across 128 coastal park units. Many coastal park units, including those in the San Diego Coast District, are already impacted by episodic coastal erosion and flooding caused by waves and storms, which is expected to increase as sea levels continue to rise. Through this project, Vulnerability Assessments are being developed using a holistic approach to vulnerability and adaptation planning that includes unique State Park assets, including access, recreation, cultural and natural resources, and facilities–assets not typically addressed in other assessments. These assessments fill a critical knowledge gap and will help pave the way for more holistic adaptation and resilience projects once complete.

The San Diego County region is home to the largest number of tribal nations of any county in the United States, including 18 federally recognized tribal nation reservations and 17 tribal governments. While tribal nations are subject to Federal laws and regulations, they are not subject to State and local environmental laws and regulations and many tribal governments have environmental departments that have established their own regulations. Beyond these formal structures, tribes have been managing natural resources, their land, and those lands that were unceded for thousands of years based on Tribal Ecological Knowledge (TEK). Partners across the region can now take critical steps to work more collaboratively with tribes and to identify clear pathways for deeper partnership by supporting tribal values, building trust, and creating a shared vision for climate and coastal resilience. Tribal engagement should be authentic, proactive, and culturally-sensitive, recognizing that tribal nations have different decision-making and engagement protocols. Partners can turn to existing efforts, including the Climate Science Alliance’s Tribal Working Group and SANDAG’s Tribal Governments Taskforce and Regional Tribal Summits, as existing pathways for engagement.

Prioritizing Inter-Agency Cooperation

In 2018, the Port of San Diego and the U.S. Navy formally agreed to coordinate with one another to prepare for potential impacts of sea level rise along San Diego’s bayfront. This is the first agreement of its kind between the U.S. Navy and a west coast port, with the goal of supporting both agencies’ operations and missions. The Port and the Navy will share information, evaluate the best available scientific information and modeling related to sea level rise, and collaborate to identify complementary adaptation policies and measures. Impacts and challenges resulting from sea level rise are felt beyond jurisdictional boundaries; innovative agreements like this one help set the stage for deeper and stronger collaboration. Wherever appropriate, our region should prioritize sharing of multi-jurisdictional data, information and resources.

In June 2020, the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) was awarded a grant from the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation (OLDCC) through the Department of Defense (DoD) to support local governments’ efforts to analyze and implement actions necessary to foster, protect, and enhance Military Installation Resilience (MIR). SANDAG and the Navy worked with regional stakeholders to complete an initial assessment of climate change threats to military installations and surrounding transportation infrastructure. In 2021, SANDAG was awarded a second grant from the OLDCC to narrow the study area analyzed in Phase 1 down to three key transportation corridors that have high strategic importance for Navy mission readiness and are at highest risk of climate impacts. Phase 2 focuses on the specific needs of the SR 75/282, Harbor Drive, and Pacific Coast Highway corridors, and developed a framework that uses data to inform resilient infrastructure solution recommendations and sustainable transportation strategies to mitigate climate impacts to installations.

Advancing a coordinated set of coastal pilot projects that collectively help achieve the region’s identified resilience goals will help to scale promising efforts among collaborating jurisdictions and partners. Pilot projects offer numerous advantages, creating an opportunity to develop and test innovative coastal resilience solutions—particularly, multibenefit nature-based solutions—with low financial risk, on a rapid timeline, and with an eye towards learning. By strengthening connections and partnerships, including through close collaboration with leading local academic institutions and through a readily accessible project and pilot map, partners can accelerate future implementation of projects that foster cross-jurisdictional collaboration. These projects should prioritize opportunities for enhanced monitoring and data collection that will continue to provide the region with real-time examples of resilience dividends. By encompassing holistic projects and pilots, the database can provide insight across multiple coastal typologies and habitats, as well as across various socioeconomic factors and communities.

San Diego’s 70 miles of coastline encompass three littoral cells that uniquely affect sediment transport and movement: the Oceanside Littoral Cell (from Dana Point to Oceanside), the Mission Bay Littoral Cell (from La Jolla to Point Loma), and the Silver Strand Littoral Cell (from the end of Point Loma to Ensenada, Mexico). These cells experience varying degrees of coastal erosion and influence the sand supply of the region’s diverse coastlines and coastal ecosystems–just one example demonstrating how impacts from climate change are not constrained by social and geopolitical borders. While most cities and land-owning agencies have their own plans and priorities, many of these projects and adaptation strategies require coordination, consideration, and participation of neighboring entities to address climate impacts at scale successfully. Regionally scaled approaches to planning can achieve multiple benefits, while misaligned or locally specific planning without regional coordination can have potential negative impacts.
By considering project impacts and coordination at the sub-regional scale, there are opportunities to pool or leverage funding, ensure multiple needs are supported, and scale solutions that work with natural systems, not against them. In 2022, the State of California passed Senate Bill 852, which would authorize a city, county, special district, or a combination of any of those entities to form a Climate Resilience District for the purposes of raising and allocating funding, as well as operating expenses, for eligible projects. The bill would deem each district to be an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District (EIFD) and would require each district to comply with existing law concerning EIFDs, except as specified. This is one promising example that may be operationalized to sub-regional and regional project financing efforts.

Historically, tribal ecological knowledge has been overlooked and invalidated in favor of westernized, colonial-centric academic practices and research. As a result, tribal ecological knowledge (TEK), which prioritizes the balance of anthropogenic interference with nature, has been lost or left unpracticed. This omission, in tandem with the historical exclusion of indigenous communities in many land use decision making processes, has resulted in loss of culture and connection to the coast for many of the indigenous communities that reside in the San Diego region. Outreach groups and indigenous-led organizations, like Yaqui Divers, are actively working to reclaim opportunities to elevate their culture and ways of knowing, including through language and land practices, while sharing and strengthening these learning opportunities and connections for their community’s youth. The Yaqui Divers program is built off the Yaqui cultural history in Southern California and connection to the Yaqui settlements in Baja California, particularly Mulejé, where the preservation of pearl diving and other ocean traditions has continued for hundreds of years. Yaqui Divers are committed to marine habitat restoration and actively engage in community science to fulfill this spiritual obligation, aiming to help community members reconnect with the coast, get participants in the water, and learn traditional practices. Programs like these strengthen the presence and influence of TEK, elevating indigenous communities as leaders in identifying and building resilience solutions.

Due to increasing pressures of urbanization, globalization, and climate change, our local flora have been eradicated from their traditional habitats and often are out-competed for growing space in natural spaces by invasive species. Native plants provide critical habitat for flora and fauna and are more equipped to handle climate fluctuations, such as drought, than many invasive species that are not well adapted for the region. To support the restoration of native plant populations, public libraries in San Diego have opted to house seed libraries that are available to the public and help encourage education about the benefits of native planting. Other approaches include the incorporation of traditional practices and centering tribal ecological knowledge by fostering efforts in collaboration with tribal nations. The Resilient Restoration program, supported by the Climate Science Alliance's Tribal Working Group, UC Riverside, and San Diego State University, is actively working to support actions that enhance the persistence of cultural practices while preserving ecosystems by planting culturally important species. Improving education efforts and mainstreaming programs that prioritize native plants will ensure our region’s biodiversity continues to be supported while also building resilience with climate-adapted habitats.

Quantifying the Value of Biodiversity

Municipalities and jurisdictions often face challenges securing needed resources for investments in conservation, restoration, and nature-based approaches that increase biodiversity. At first glance these investments may appear costly for entities facing constrained resources. However, when weighing options, many partners lack the tools and data needed to fully capture the true benefits and costs of projects as well as those associated with inaction. SDRCC will work with existing regional experts and partners to identify, amplify, and share best practices–working towards standardized approaches across the region–that help to quantify in economic terms the multiple environmental and social benefits of solutions that prioritize biodiversity. These will include locally appropriate and best-in-class cost/benefit analyses that drive improved understanding of the value of coastal assets from multiple perspectives—not just ecosystems themselves, but economic and community systems as well. By quantifying both the cost of inaction as well as capturing the true value of a range of alternatives, these resources can help make the business case for partners across the region for coordinated investments in coastal resilience projects that increase biodiversity.

Approaching policy, advocacy, and regulatory action from an integrated and intersectional perspective is important to ensure these approaches fully encompass the diverse climate impacts affecting communities across our region. Both traditional decision-makers and community leaders should consider the positive benefits of prioritizing biodiversity in policy actions and projects. Training and a curriculum to support these efforts are already underway through the Audubon Society. San Diego Audubon’s Advocate Training Program is aimed at supporting community members in their attempts to best advocate for birds, other wildlife, and their habitats. The program includes free training sessions, which cover skills such as reviewing environmental documents, understanding the legal mechanisms of conservation in our area, and engaging with elected officials. Experts and regional partners, such as the Nonprofit Institute and Leaders 20/20, that offer leadership development and training should work to align their efforts to include a holistic approach that mainstreams increased biodiversity as a resilience pathway.

Coastal communities harbor sought-after and lucrative real estate, as well as many geologic and structural features such as cliffs and sea walls that have made coastal spaces unaffordable and difficult to access. In addition, other existing and historic systematic practices such as redlining and structural racism have also deepened the inaccessibility of coastal spaces for low income communities and communities of color. With increased frequency and prolonged duration of extreme heat waves in inland areas expected to prevail as our climate changes, accessible routes, transportation, and access points to beaches and other coastal spaces serve as an important mechanism for those seeking natural cool zones. By centering equity and affordability when planning and designing coastal access projects or improvements, we can continue to ensure that all San Deigans have access to the many benefits, social and otherwise, these spaces offer. Implementing broader community recommendations, including inland communities in coastal decision-making processes, and following best practices for more equitable permitting processes will improve access. Accessibility enhancements for permitted activities, or actions increasing access to affordable overnight coastal accommodations, can all help increase access to coastal benefits for more communities.

The San Diego region is home to a complex system of 11 coastal watersheds, or areas of land that drain water from our inland ecosystems down to the ocean. Rainfall events wash harmful pollutants, such as pesticides, heavy metals, and bacteria, into the water, while putting low-lying watersheds and coastal systems at risk. Increasing our understanding of the critical relationship among our watersheds and our coasts is an essential first step in developing stronger coastal resilience strategies. As a part of its 150th anniversary celebration, the San Diego Natural History Museum is building upon this understanding and proposing a ten-year fund that will identify and address various challenges related to our watersheds, particularly in our inland areas and communities. Shifting to a more holistic approach to restoring and safeguarding our watershed systems broadens our view of who and what is affected by coastal issues, and helps expand our efforts thoughtfully into inland communities that are indirectly affected by these issues but have historically been overlooked in the past.

Biodiversity Communication Campaigns

Among the many roles museums play in connecting residents and visitors to treasured collections, they serve as an accessible hub for science conservation, education, and community outreach. The San Diego Natural History Museum (Nat) provides several community science programs, including its Bio Blitz. These events utilize apps like iNaturalist to encourage residents and community members to get outside, in their neighborhoods or beyond, and to digitally identify and log the plants, insects, and animals they encounter. Additionally, specific exhibits, like the newly launched Exhibition Baja, and other in-house events, like featured scientist talks, provide information in engaging formats about the natural and changing landscape of the Cali-Baja region. Building upon the existing expertise and success of work led by the Nat, communication and outreach should provide an educational experience and connection to regional biodiversity in formats such as talks, hikes, social media, and more. By expanding and supporting efforts to include additional partners to lead this engagement, we can enhance outreach to even broader audiences.

Aligning partners across the region to foster a deeper collective definition and understanding of nature-based solutions, including defining priority guidelines and outlining examples of regional nature-based projects, will support planning, funding, and implementation processes. Nature-based solutions work with nature, providing additional benefits beyond traditional resilience and adaptation metrics, while also supporting strategies that increase biodiversity of our ecosystems. Creating a framework and database that houses resources related to nature-based solutions, opportunities for funding, and shovel-worthy projects ready for implementation would advance collaborative biodiversity efforts across the region. The framework would define existing and potential nature-based solutions, pathways, and projects, including their strengths and shortcomings. This database could be modeled after the 30x30 project database developed in the Bay Area which includes over 100 projects that are ready to implement and meet the objectives of the State of California’s Pathways to 30×30 Strategy.

Understand the Opportunity for Nature-Based Solutions

Scripps Institution of Oceanography will lead efforts to conduct research to understand the feasibility of nature-based solutions across the San Diego region. This effort will help communities identify the most strategic sites for pilot projects, and facilitate early conversations with key stakeholders that are grounded in evidence-based science. In addition, conducting this analysis at the landscape scale of the whole regional coastline will lay the groundwork for a common baseline for monitoring, evaluation, and learning that will benefit not just regional project owners, but practitioners and policy makers across the state of California and beyond.

The opportunity is great: funding for nature-based solutions has never been so readily available. But because the region has yet to fully explore the full potential for these solutions, this research is required to understand where and how various types of these solutions might be piloted to maximize resilience benefits.

In addition, while our beaches and coastal typologies protect built infrastructure along these systems, we have yet to fully understand–and communicate–the opportunity for scaling nature-based solutions as an adaptation pathway in a way that will attract additional funding for pilots and for the regionally valuable learning that will follow. This new work will unlock a variety of new implementation pathways for nature-based solutions.

Since the 1900s, 90% of California’s native wetlands have been lost to urban development. While only a fraction of these original systems remain, in the San Diego region about 40% of the remaining wetlands are currently protected. Wetlands and lagoons provide refuge to endangered species, such as the Ridgeway Rail and other migratory birds that overwinter in San Diego’s warmer climate. Wetlands and lagoons also provide a natural buffer from extreme flood events and protect adjacent coastal and low-lying properties and communities. Initiatives like ReWild Mission Bay prioritize restoring and rebuilding lost wetlands and maintaining our existing wetlands to promote biodiversity and conscious recreation in estuarine systems. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in collaboration with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, The Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, and multiple partnering local jurisdictions, is conducting restoration activities along the San Diego coast, including in the Tijuana River Estuary, Los Penasquitos Lagoon, and Mission Bay's Kendall Frost Marsh. Maintaining and expanding initiatives that support our wetlands and critical coastal ecosystems will increase biodiversity while providing communities with an additional buffer from sea level rise impacts.

Beaches are dynamic ecosystems that provide multiple community and ecological benefits. These multipurpose recreational spaces can serve as natural cooling centers during times of extreme heat. Beaches also offer a natural buffer, mitigating impacts from flooding and storm surge events. Because sea level rise causes a lateral loss in the accessible space and width along our beaches, restoration of these systems has become integral for the health of our coasts. Coastal armoring, sand replenishment, and living coastlines are all examples of coastal adaptation strategies that might be used to enhance, protect, or restore beach systems. Municipalities and coastal land managers must navigate challenges in approaching how best to restore and sustain these beaches in order to ensure continued use, public access, and natural benefits. Finding pathways to work with nature-forward design principles, and implementing innovative and cross-cutting solutions that align with coastal typology, to help restore the natural dynamics and habitats along our beach systems will increase biodiversity and resilience of our beaches.

The City of Encinitas worked with a coalition of innovative partners to build the Cardiff State Beach Living Shoreline, restoring a historic dune system on top of buried rock revetment, a project that is intended to provide multiple engineering, environmental, and community benefits. Other municipalities and coastal land owners in our region have been working with engineers, scientists, and designers to identify additional priority nature-based strategies that will build resilience and ecological benefits.

Marine Protected Area Management and Enhancement

In addition to protecting onshore ecosystems, protecting wetland and coastal areas through Federal and State action will conserve and support the health of existing populations of fish, birds, and plants. Existing Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), however, lack enforcement due to staffing constraints, both in capacity and proximity. Oftentimes, MPA wardens are unable to reach individuals in violation of a no-take policy due to workload, distance, or lack of boats or equipment. Creating and nurturing a stronger culture of care for existing MPAs, while educating residents about the importance and ecological and cultural value that MPAs provide, would help increase the effectiveness of marine conservation in these areas. For instance, tribal leaders through the Yaqui Divers program take trips to local MPAs to teach participants about traditional indigenous connections and practices along the coast. However, local MPAs are small and oftentimes difficult to access without expensive equipment or training. Partners across the region should strive for enhanced capacity for enforcement, increased accessibility for community groups, and strengthened inclusion for tribes and valuing of cultural practices in these conservation areas.

Resilience hubs are trusted community-serving facilities that provide year-round services before, during, and after disruptive events, particularly around extreme heat events and other climate-induced disasters, while building social cohesion and supporting communities everyday. Also referred to as community resilience centers, resilience hubs have been piloted in many communities across the country and have been elevated as a priority solution to build resilience, particularly in the face of increasing risks related to extreme heat. Extreme heat has been called the “silent killer” driven by climate change, with the most severe health impacts experienced by the elderly, youth, and those with underlying health conditions. Greater levels of funding are becoming available to support these spaces, such as through the Strategic Growth Council’s new Community Resilience Centers program. The City of San Diego is now looking to expand Library Cool Zones into more dynamic, multi-purpose resilience hubs to address extreme heat, as well as to provide additional services such as added grid redundancy and wildfire evacuation sites. This model is ripe for expansion and replication in jurisdictions across the region; partners can maximize the opportunities enabled by resilience hubs by coordinating with one another to create a regional network.

In 2019, the City of San Diego developed a Climate Equity Index, with support of an equity working group, to measure access to opportunity and assess the degree of potential climate impacts within each census tract. This first-of-its-kind tool considers a range of environmental, mobility, health, housing, and socioeconomic indicators to better understand the cumulative effects of climate change, environmental pollution, and other vulnerabilities on communities. In 2021, inspired by the City of San Diego, the City of Chula Vista developed a Draft Climate Equity Index. Expanding upon these efforts to create a region-wide Climate Equity Index will enable all jurisdictions in our region to make data-informed decisions to target climate and infrastructure investments where they are most needed. These localized indices provide improved data, supplementing statewide resources like CalEnviroScreen, that support local jurisdictions in making better informed decisions to support equitable investments in projects, programs, and infrastructure.

A regional asset, the Bayshore Bikeway is– envisioned as a separated bike path that will extend 24 miles around San Diego Bay, passing–one that passes through multiple cities including Chula Vista, San Diego, Coronado and Imperial Beach. The City of Imperial Beach is developing plans and engineering designs to repurpose a 1.2-mile segment of the Bayshore Bikeway corridor. The project will: enhance flood protection of the bikeway and adjacent neighborhood, improve access to and along the bikeway, preserve the natural habitat around the bikeway, and provide additional opportunities for future economic development and recreation.

The Bayside Neighborhood is one of the most vulnerable segments of Imperial Beach to coastal flooding impacts. The Bikeway and the residential community in this location are already prone to flooding during existing extreme tidal events near 7th Street and Basswood Avenue. Projected sea level rise will drastically increase the risk of tidal (non-storm) flooding at this location with a projected 3.5 feet of increased sea level impacting large portions of SR-75 and the neighborhood.

The project will incorporate a variety of nature-based features and sea level rise adaptation strategies. A Living Levee will elevate the Class 1 Bikeway using an earthen living levee concept and ecotone slope to increase sea level rise resilience. Multi-purpose detention basin/stormwater improvements will result in a flood control structure that will manage floodwater and control stormwater discharge to the Bay.

The project will also provide additional coastal access and environmental benefits. Coastal access trail improvements will add separated pedestrian and bicycle paths alongside the Bikeway to provide connectivity and reduce conflicts between bikes and pedestrians. Through habitat enhancements, existing tidal marsh will be enhanced and restored in alignment with implementation of the living levees and activities to increase tidal flushing in Pond 10A.

Proposed "Access Nodes" will allow visitors to come together in defined areas to view the scenery. The intent is to provide a safe area for pedestrians to cross the Bikeway and for those users on wheeled vehicles to slow and accommodate different users. While this project is currently being led by Imperial Beach, and offers a promising increase in coastal protection as well as important public access for the adjacent communities, the effort prioritizes collaboration–and Bikeway expansion with neighboring communities beyond the current proposed project site will extend and enhance the important resilience dividends this project provides. These multi-benefit adaptation and multi-benefit improvements, including such as coastal access and the separated bikeway, serve as an example and important model for the region.

Oceanside Sand Nourishment and Retention Pilot

The City of Oceanside has experienced rapid beach erosion for at least five decades. Despite annual dredging of Oceanside’s Harbor mouth as a supplemental supply, sediment loss has persisted and today there is no dry sand on Oceanside’s beaches for most of the year. Coupled with impacts from climate change, including sea level rise, severe storms, and tidal flooding, the need for an intervention has become critical. In 2022, the City of Oceanside approved phase two of a sand nourishment and retention pilot project including a design competition process that will bring international design firms together to tackle Oceanside’s dwindling coast. Competing teams will develop innovative sand retention designs that seek to include multiple benefits, such as nature-based solutions. The selected design will move into final design and permitting, encouraging not just the generation of new ideas for the coast but a concept that can and will be built. GHD and Resilient Cities Catalyst are working alongside the City to execute the project and understand the process’s potential to strengthen the enabling environment across San Diego for pilot projects that bolster coastal resilience.

The City of San Diego is leading the development of a Coastal Resilience Master Plan that prioritizes nature-based solutions and green infrastructure as a response to aging and inadequate infrastructure and to address multiple climate shocks and stresses, including extreme heat and sea level rise. Existing infrastructure practices have resulted in broader implementation of man-made, coastal hardening strategies. With the consideration and mainstreaming of nature-based solutions and green infrastructure, positive co-benefits such as ecosystem restoration and naturally cooling green spaces can be more readily realized. Making alternative forms of infrastructure solutions a priority pathway in planning documents is an important signal and can spur action beyond the public sector, including across the development industry, encouraging these types of resilience projects over more traditional gray infrastructure.

StartBlue is an accelerator affiliated with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography & Rady School of Management that supports the formation of advanced science and engineering startups tackling ocean-focused challenges and solutions integrated into science, industry, investment, and government networks. In its first cohort round, StartBlue supported Reefpark, which focuses on the engineering of living coral reef-mimicking structures for the sustainable use of coastal resources.StartBlue and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography can explore partnerships with regional leaders like the Port of San Diego to pilot this artificial reef technology in San Diego Bay, creating new models for coastal protection with additional ecosystem benefits. By using the Port as a testing ground, the region, state, and world can learn about how to implement artificial reefs–which provide multiple benefits–and San Diego will help grow its regional blue economy. Increasing opportunity pathways to implement innovative resilience adaptation pilots will also provide much needed data and information about their multiple benefits and potential scale of impact.

In May 2020, the City of Carlsbad was awarded over $500,000 in grant funding from the California State Coastal Conservancy to design a plan that would increase resilience to rising sea levels, including relocation of a vulnerable stretch of South Carlsbad Boulevard further away from the coastline. The overall long-term project scope involves a three-mile stretch along the coast from Palomar Airport Road down to La Costa Avenue. Planners and engineers have focused on an initial design phase for how the southbound lanes of Carlsbad Boulevard from Manzano Drive to Island Way could be moved further east, allowing for a repurposing and restoration of the coastal land.
The overall goal is to move critical transportation infrastructure inland. In the current phase of work, with the State Coastal Conservancy funding, the City of Carlsbad is working with GHD to explore moving the one-mile stretch of South Carlsbad Boulevard inland to address vulnerabilities to sea level rise. Findings from a recent SANDAG study on regional transportation infrastructure demonstrate that multi-jurisdictional coordination is required to realign critical transportation infrastructure effectively. Moving forward, a coordinated effort that includes collaboration among diverse partners from local, regional, statewide, and federal agencies will most effectively support improvements that foster more resilient transportation infrastructure.

Multinational Clean Water Infrastructure

In 2022, the International Boundary and Water Commission, United States and Mexico (IBWC) announced an agreement to support sanitation projects addressing sewage problems along the Tijuana River, with $330 million in funding from the U.S. government and $144 million in funding from the Mexican government. Dynamic impacts from rainfall runoff as well as from sewage and wastewater treatment infrastructure failures can directly and negatively impact coastal health. Originating in Mexico, the Tijuana River runs along the border between the United States and Mexico and flows to the Pacific Ocean on the southern edge of San Diego County. Water treatment facilities along the River are unable to support demand and are often overrun with sewage and trash, which flow to the ocean and significantly impact the water quality in San Diego's southern beaches. South Bay beaches are routinely closed as a result of the cross-border pollution. Imperial Beach, for example, had sewage closure or warning signs posted on 249 days last year, according to data from the San Diego County Department of Environmental Health and Quality.

Projects supported by the IBWC agreement are expected to be completed and operational by the end of 2027 and to result in a 50% reduction in the number of days of transboundary wastewater flow in the Tijuana River and an 80% reduction in the volume of untreated wastewater discharged to the Pacific Ocean six miles south of the border. These projects and infrastructure improvements are an essential step forward and lay the groundwork for new and improved opportunities for additional projects and partnerships that offer increased multi-benefit solutions and improved multi-national coordination.

Stormwater capture projects and management systems are most effective when the storm drainage systems within a city and region are well understood and maintained. The City of Imperial Beach has been working to assess storm drains and to identify opportunities to elevate stormwater capture projects that can be integrated into a full stormwater management system for the City. Through this undertaking, a need emerged to assess storm drains across the San Diego region. One benefit of assessments that examine stormwater management at a larger scale, rather than jurisdiction by jurisdiction, is the ability to identify storm drains that outflow across jurisdictions and to plan comprehensively, resulting in opportunities to prioritize capture and reuse in severe storm events and strengthening the resilience of the water system.

California Coastal Commission Trainings & Outreach

With cities across the region confronting similar and related coastal infrastructure challenges that are further compounded by climate change and sea level rise, there is an opportunity to strengthen understanding of the role of permitting agencies like the California Coastal Commission in advancing projects that enable communities to respond more quickly to coastal infrastructure needs, as jurisdictions seek required approvals from the Commission for infrastructure projects that are within the Coastal Zone. The City of Oceanside, for example, has been working closely with the Coastal Commission on a number of projects. These efforts underscore the potential in leveraging more regular, regional convening efforts to streamline permitting and funding processes. With convening support from the San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative, this effort will open dialogue and can help spur action for cities across the region confronting similar challenges.

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

Many of California’s coastal landscapes are defined or were historically defined by dune systems, which provided a natural barrier to wave impacts and critical ecosystems. The California Coastal Dune Science Network seeks to understand how existing and restored dune systems can strengthen resilience along California’s coast. In San Diego, the Cardiff Living Shoreline is an example of these highly transitional and adaptive landscapes that can buffer critical infrastructure and ecosystems from severe storms, flooding, and sea level rise. By fostering connections among practitioners, guiding best practices, sharing research and data, and engaging students and communities, the Network is helping to build a greater understanding of how a network of dune systems can build resilience. Learnings from the Dune Science Network can inform scaling of new pilot projects across the region.

More frequent extreme weather events induced by climate change, as well as accelerated efforts to decarbonize and electrify our energy system, have created new and evolving challenges for grid reliability. Recognizing these challenges and simultaneously addressing the importance of supporting a clean energy transition, the City of Chula Vista is investing in critical infrastructure, such as combined solar and battery storage solutions, to transform clusters of City-owned and City-operated buildings into resilient microgrids. Some City facilities will soon be equipped with batteries; however, roughly 15 buildings equipped with solar infrastructure still currently lack storage capacity due to insufficient funding. The City of Chula Vista is planning to develop a Microgrid Feasibility Study to explore viable pathways for implementation, which can serve as an example for other buildings throughout the City and other jurisdictions in the San Diego region and beyond.

Modeling sustainability and grid resilience at San Diego Airport

Our regional economy’s vibrancy and growth depend upon holistic resilience solutions, including those that advance energy redundancy and reliability through grid resilience. As a world-class tourist destination, the San Diego International Airport (SAN) plays a key role in economic activity and connectivity. The San Diego County Regional Airport Airport Authority (Airport Authority) manages the day-to-day operations of SAN and addresses the region’s long-term air transportation needs. SAN is the busiest single-runway commercial airport in the United States.

The Airport Authority has integrated sustainability across social, environmental, and economic functions in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate vulnerabilities (for example, minimizing energy usage). The Airport Authority is working to increase the volume of photovoltaic (PV) solar battery storage as the load demand grows and is also focused on ensuring enough battery storage is available for renewable energy generation. The Airport Authority’s Terminal 1 (T1) project, which is underway, will integrate sustainability into the modernization of the terminal’s operations and building functions. This effort will provide the region with a high-performing campus that is resilient in the face of climate-induced vulnerabilities. Additional energy resilience and redundancy will be integrated in the new T1 parking plaza as 10% of the future lot will be dedicated to electric vehicle (EV) charging. SAN is working to provide the EV infrastructure necessary to support this increased EV charging capacity.

San Diego County Regional Airport Airport Authority

Torrey Pines State Reserve North Lot Managed Retreat

The North Beach Parking Lot serves as a key access point for the northern portion of Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve, including for Los Peñasquitos Lagoon, Torrey Pines State Beach, and a network of regional trails. The Los Peñasquitos Lagoon Enhancement Plan identified managed retreat of the parking lot as a priority project due to its current vulnerability to sea level rise and other climate impacts. A feasibility study is being conducted to improve water flows under McGonigle Road through design elements, for example by replacing the damaged culvert or elevating the roadway to improve wildlife movement. The study will also address stormwater management needs, such as through bioswales and other green infrastructure methods, and assess alternatives to relocate the bathroom that is currently vulnerable to sea level rise and coastal flooding. This project aims to provide multiple benefits, from preserving beach access to maximizing ecological and community benefits.

San Diego Regional Rail Alternative Alignment Study

The San Diego Regional Rail Alignment Study analyzed potential realignment options that would move a portion of the rail line completely off of coastal bluffs in the City of Del Mar, increasing stability for this key rail corridor. A total of $300 million was secured to move this study through the environmental and design phase. Two options for Del Mar Heights alignment were studied, crossing either above or below Carmel Valley Road. SANDAG is refining the two alignment alternatives based on engineering, construction, and operational considerations as well as stakeholder input to reduce impacts to the community. A feasibility study will determine which of the options will advance to environmental review. This study builds upon previous conceptual alignment studies completed by SANDAG in 2017, in which five conceptual rail realignments were identified.

The natural flow of sediment through the San Luis Rey River mouth and estuary in Oceanside has been restricted by the construction of the Oceanside Harbor and Boat Basin for decades. The Army Corps of Engineers recently progressed levee maintenance along the San Luis Rey River that will enhance ecological restoration with the potential to bring back some of the natural flow of sediment to Oceanside’s coast. Projects like this are often not prioritized by local municipalities and the California Coastal Commission, but they are important for building long-term resilience. Annual dredging of the Harbor mouth currently costs the City millions of dollars. With a functioning River mouth and sediment flow connecting through the watershed, costly annual dredging may no longer be needed and the entire Oceanside Littoral Cell, extending down to La Jolla, would see an increase in sediment.

Cities and communities across the region can increasingly use growing understanding of sediment and sand movement–and of littoral drifts, or ocean currents–to better manage their beaches. Beyond supporting recreational use, sandy beaches also act as natural buffers for critical coastal infrastructure, dampening wave attenuation from large storms and protecting from the impacts of flooding and sea level rise. Nature based solutions that lower risk of climate impacts, like living shorelines and engineered dune systems, require large amounts of sediment to construct and implement. However, local municipalities face challenges in moving large amounts of sand because a lack of support and clarity from permitting agencies have made these projects arduous or sometimes impossible. Streamlining regulations, while supporting capacity needed to navigate permitting processes and regulatory frameworks that enable the movement of sand to beaches in need, would help cities manage their coastlines efficiently and reduce risk.

Since 1979, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has required any new project led by a public agency to inform project stakeholders, decision makers, and the public about the project’s proposed and potential impacts on the environment. These impacts are traditionally measured against existing ecosystem conditions and risk. However, with increasingly dynamic environmental shifts brought on by climate change, assessments in light of existing conditions are inadequate because they do not accurately account for future risks. Partners can advocate for several adjustments to CEQA that would incorporate and embed future environmental risk and impacts. These modifications would encourage public agencies to produce and focus on projects that more comprehensively address both existing and future conditions.

Projecting future climate conditions is essential to strengthen understanding of how our communities will be affected by climate change and the resulting consequences. However, data and research that address such changes do not always connect back directly to their impact on communities. Weather data in tandem with census tract data, including socio-economic attributes, should be utilized when calculating risk. For instance, as weather patterns become more unpredictable under a changing climate, extreme precipitation–such as atmospheric rivers–and extreme heat threaten properties and infrastructure that was built to withstand moderate rain and temperatures. Estimating hospitalizations due to heat-associated illnesses, including cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses, is important for identifying what kind of health risks communities face during extreme heat waves. Additionally, analyzing how terrain and proximity to the ocean affect these impacts–including by modeling green spaces, such as tree canopy and cover, park access, and impervious surface cover–contributes to a holistic understanding of health risks for communities. Furthermore, integrating spatial data with demographic and socioeconomic data strengthens understanding of how communities of different incomes and races are impacted by climate-driven health hazards.

Storm intensity and accompanying conditions, including powerful wave swells, large atmospheric rivers, and higher tides, are anticipated to increase with climate change–prompting critical decisions for local governments, State agencies, and residents. Access to high quality, frequently updated datasets, including during post-storm recovery, enables informed decision-making, allowing communities to prepare, adapt, and implement successful projects now and into the future. One example of an opportunity to strengthen data collection and use includes sourcing and supporting the collection of high-resolution lidar and hyperspectral aircraft surveys that can map changes in beaches, cliffs, wetlands, estuaries, and built environments immediately following the cumulative impacts of intense storm events. Additionally, precision mapping of shorelines and site-specific assessment of exposure and water level tracking can enable more accurate flood forecasts. These datasets and models can be combined with satellite imagery and other spatial observations to provide land managers and planners with a longer-term context grounded in useful results. It is also critical to support frequent and repeated collection of data, which will be invaluable for assessing coastal resilience, advancing predictive modeling capabilities for climate risk assessment, and ultimately, leading to specific best practice recommendations.

Climate Risk Communications Campaign

Challenges in understanding complex concepts related to climate risk create additional barriers to strengthening community preparedness. Simple and accessible communications strategies can help to overcome these barriers by increasing awareness of climate threats alongside an accurate understanding of risk–including practical knowledge about potential impacts. Through creative community engagement, regional leaders can help educate local residents about these complex topics related to long-term climate risk, identify information gaps, and mobilize action to support communities. An innovative communications campaign would capitalize upon the region’s natural assets, engage with communities creatively through formats and channels that meet them where they are, use simple language accessible to non-technical audiences from diverse backgrounds, and incorporate effective approaches in order to increase awareness and preparedness. These communications should support a clear understanding of the specific risks residents face as well as concrete steps they can take to mitigate risk and prepare for more likely scenarios. By launching and sustaining these kinds of creative communications efforts, partners can help more San Diegans reduce their risk and take steps to become more prepared in the face of future climate threats.

Resilient Cities Catalyst (RCC) will work with local partners to identify the best possible opportunities for piloting Resilience Districts to advance coastal projects. This effort will include forming governance structures and revenue streams by aligning beneficiaries and project costs. Resilience Districts are a new policy tool in California, and an innovation that could change the way communities develop and operate resilience projects across the country and around the world. Through the development and testing of these pilots in the San Diego region, we will better understand this new policy’s potential for scaling, and RCC will leverage its national and international network of partners to explore opportunities for replication.

Resilience Districts were adopted as a new policy in October 2022, when California Senate Bill 852 established a new mechanism for managing and resourcing resilience projects.The Climate Resilience Districts Act authorizes local agencies to create Climate Resilience Districts to address climate change effects and impacts. The Districts must be formed for the purpose of raising and allocating funding for projects, and their operating expenses, that are designed and implemented to address climate change mitigation, adaptation, or resilience. The Climate Resilience Districts are limited to funding projects that address sea level rise, extreme heat, extreme cold, and the risk of wildfire, drought, and flooding.

Understanding Nature-Based Solutions’ Impact on Risk

The Port of San Diego will leverage its existing investments in innovative, natural and nature-based solutions to explore and understand their potential impact in risk reduction for both the Port’s assets, and the region as a whole.

Over the last decade, the Port of San Diego has prioritized piloting innovative solutions to manage current and future climate impacts. Through partnerships to implement projects using innovative materials (such as ECOncrete), the Port has deployed a number of small-scale, coastal resilience pilots that feature a variety of nature-based solutions.

While the pilots have been constructed and their direct impacts are being monitored, the Port has not yet conducted a full analysis of the potential impact of these pilot projects on the overall risk profile of the Port, including full social, economic, and environmental costs and savings. Undergoing this analysis, and determining the potential savings and risk reduction, could yield new financial mechanisms to fund scaling of the pilots and deployment of these solutions by other regional actors. Additionally, this effort will test ways to communicate these benefits more broadly to the public through briefings, online communication, and broader engagement activities.

Given the Port’s role as a regional leader, these analyses can support research and address information gaps to catalyze stronger regional adoption and deployment of innovative models. Better understanding the full range of benefits is an important step toward establishing standards for natural and nature based solutions, which will facilitate further scaling and greater impact.

Parametric Insurance for Emergency Dredging

Major storm events or coastal forces can occasionally suddenly close a harbor mouth, erode a beach, or disrupt the natural flow of sediment in a coastal ecosystem. Many municipalities and agencies maintain “rainy day funds'' to manage the costs associated with these disruptions, or at times simply have to allocate emergency funds. Parametric insurance offers a promising solution, as the product would set specific criteria (for example, harbor channel depth) that could be measured objectively to establish condition points. The moment the agreed upon condition is met, funds would be released to the agency or municipality holding the parametric insurance policy that could be deployed immediately to address the problem. Resilient Cities Catalyst will work with insurance companies, brokers, the California Department of Insurance, and local governments to explore the potential for this new product in the San Diego Region.

Statewide Dialogues on Nature & Risk

Multiple regional partners will bring experts, practitioners, and other partners together to support additional dialogues needed to catalyze new approaches to address risk. Through convenings such as learning symposia, webinars, working groups, and tactical workshops oriented around specific project opportunities, these sessions will intentionally engage partners across sectors to facilitate development of innovative tools and solutions.

Coastal communities statewide face growing, climate-driven threats that impact both coastal ecosystems and the people who depend on them, including rising seas and frequent flooding. The multi-trillion dollar insurance industry, which increasingly views these impacts as unchecked risk, can also be a tool for mitigating this risk if activated through climate adaptation and mitigation efforts. Building upon the innovative recommendations established by the California Department of Insurance’s (CDI) 2021 California Climate Insurance Working Group, Ocean Science Trust (OST) signed a memorandum of agreement with CDI to provide science services and support on issues pertaining to resilient coasts and oceans. In early 2023, OST and CDI partnered with the UC Santa Cruz Center for Coastal Climate Resilience and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to host the Integrating Nature into Risk Science & Insurance Symposium. The symposium brought together local and national policymakers, insurance practitioners, and coastal resilience experts to explore opportunities to use insurance and nature-based solutions to build coastal resilience and reduce risk.

Building upon this collaboration will help to accelerate the integration of nature into insurance and risk management approaches, as well as the identification of potential pilot projects and solutions. Through these kinds of convenings and collaborations, partners across the region will continue to build upon this foundation to expand upon these dialogues and spur new partnerships and pilot projects.

The State’s Californians for All College Corps program, launched in 2022, provides meaningful, paid service and work experiences for college students as they simultaneously tackle urgent resilience challenges, including climate change. By providing our emerging workforce and students with the training, mentorship, and work experience necessary to secure jobs following graduation, College Corps prepares students for high quality jobs in fields such as public service and the nonprofit sector, while helping to reduce the financial burden of their education. For host partners, which currently include public agencies and nonprofit organizations, the program and Fellows provide additional staff and support their programs and project efforts at no cost–filling a critical capacity gap and expanding their programmatic impact in the communities they serve. Partners across the San Diego region can build upon the success of this model by increasing awareness and program access points for San Diegans, connecting additional local organizations to the program as hosts for Fellows, and expanding and funding similar training efforts for other critical workforce groups, such as youth, K-12, and transitional career adults.
The program places Fellows in community-based organizations addressing important community needs including climate action, food insecurity, and K-12 education. Two campuses across the San Diego region currently participate in the program, with students at the University of San Diego and University of California, San Diego (along with other campuses statewide) who demonstrate financial need eligible to participate. The program is also open to AB 540 CA Dream Act Students, providing an important pathway to economic opportunity for undocumented students who may not be eligible for other federal programs. Current College Corps Fellows in San Diego are gaining experience in organizations leading activities such as urban greening, energy conservation, environmental education, community gardens, food or nutrition support, and K-12 education. Beyond engaging in workforce training opportunities that can increase access to jobs following graduation, students participating in the program earn up to $10,000 that can go towards educational or living expenses, receive ongoing training, earn academic credit, and become part of a statewide youth leadership cohort with access to professional development opportunities.

Major Investments in San Diego’s Historic Barrios

Over a dozen organizations, led by community-based nonprofits, philanthropy, and government, have come together to seek and coordinate historic levels of investment in San Diego’s underinvested Historic Barrios. Up to $44 million total, including a potential $29.5 million grant through the State’s Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) program alongside an additional $14.75M in matching funds, could fund transformative projects in these City of San Diego communities–Logan, Stockton, Grant Hill, Sherman, Southcrest and Sheltown–vibrant cultural centers that today face disproportionate environmental burdens, poverty, and displacement as the result of decades of racism and underinvestment. Community-driven projects are currently being identified that support increased affordable housing, urban greening, building upgrades, and transportation improvements alongside workforce development and anti-displacement programs. TCC, and other models that increase coordinated investment, can promote economic opportunity, alongside health and climate benefits, for communities most vulnerable to climate impacts.

Neighborhood Oriented Economic Development

City Heights Community Development Corporation (City Heights CDC) supports the growth of small businesses that connect more residents to economic opportunity and strengthen neighborhood vibrancy. The CDC’s integrated economic development efforts can serve as a model for neighborhoods across the region, and include training for small business owners and street vendors, advocacy for investment and community priorities along key business corridors, and connections to resources, including those that support entrepreneurs in navigating City processes. These efforts have helped residents–many of whom are immigrants–launch and sustain local small businesses and keep economic activity within the neighborhood. Recently, the CDC’s economic development team was awarded $1 million in State funding in partnership with the Regional Entrepreneurship Center Innovation Lab at San Diego Miramar College, COOK Alliance, Business For Good, and the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation to lead the San Diego Food Justice Project, an effort to educate and support food-focused small business entrepreneurs. Now cultivating its fourth cohort of participants, including micro-enterprise home kitchen operations, sidewalk vendors, pop-ups and caterers, and immigrant owned restaurants, the program provides mentorship, training, and other resources.

SANDAG’s Youth Opportunity Pass pilot program provides young people under the age of 19 with unlimited free fares for transit on the bus, trolley, COASTER, and SPRINTER. The pilot increases equity and accessible mobility across the region, connecting and empowering young people to access education, recreation, training, and other community assets and opportunities regardless of family income. Currently funded through 2024, making this successful pilot program permanent would advance critical goals related to equity, mobility, and economic opportunity. Supported in partnership with the Metropolitan Transit System (MTS), North County Transit District (NCTD), and the County of San Diego, this pilot effort is a key piece of SANDAG’s Transit Equity Pilot, which aims to increase accessibility of public transit. The pilot has helped to drive increased ridership in recent years. SANDAG is working to identify funding to sustain and expand the pilot program.

World Design Capital San Diego Tijuana 2024

San Diego and Tijuana collaboratively were awarded the first binational World Design Capital designation by the World Design Organization in 2020. Civic leaders and designers across the binational region are now preparing for a year of public events, conferences, and workshops in 2024 that will focus around utilizing human-centered design to deepen the connection between ecosystems and communities across the binational region while addressing critical challenges related to the environment, economy, and social justice. Complementary design-oriented projects will create opportunities for the binational region’s more than 7 million residents to get involved in topics ranging from green infrastructure, to restoration, to public-sector innovation, to education, and more. Partners across the region have the chance to capitalize upon this historic opportunity by both developing a robust year of programming that fully engages and unifies regional partners across both sides of the border, and by ensuring that approaches identified to transform the region through this effort are fully implemented beyond 2024.

Significant inequality driven by the growing affordability crisis remains one of the most persistent, intractable challenges the region faces. Multiple multi-sector partners, initiatives, and collaborations are making progress in leveraging the region’s considerable assets and data to reduce these gaps, ranging from the Inclusive Growth collaboration, to the many nonprofits advancing place-based efforts such as a comprehensive Transformative Climate Communities initiative, to numerous additional efforts in jurisdictions across the binational region. The San Diego Foundation is advancing comprehensive efforts in impact areas ranging from children and families to education to housing and more. The long-standing Equinox Project’s Quality of Life Dashboard provides annual measures and benchmarks several environmental and economic trends throughout the region and informs and engages the public and decision-makers in crafting better solutions to regional challenges. By fostering a data-driven approach, increased knowledge sharing around best practices that support human-centered-design and strengthened coordination of antipoverty programs, and supporting regional scale coordination, our region can continue to amplify and grow these existing efforts. This effort will begin with lifting up the most effective efforts that take an integrated approach at the community scale for historically underinvested neighborhoods that disproportionately experience disparities. In addition, activities that consider the binational economy comprehensively, with a holistic approach that drives economic mobility while taking into account the connectivity of our communities and economy across the border region, will be prioritized.

Programs across the region are training San Diegans from a range of backgrounds and helping them access high quality, sustainable green jobs. Amplifying and scaling these efforts can simultaneously connect more residents to economic opportunity and mobility through well-paying jobs, while helping to tackle the region’s urgent climate challenges. The San Diego Foundation, for example, has increased investments in local partners and programs that promote access to these career pathways for opportunity youth, young people who are not in school or working, and connect them to training and green job pathways in fields such as urban forestry, agriculture, solar installation, and climate advocacy. These efforts provide young people with career readiness programs, workforce development training, and mentorship. The University of San Diego’s Nonprofit Institute hosts the Leaders 20/20 program, which cultivates a network of emerging professionals advancing green jobs and climate leadership for the region. Leaders 20/20 supports educational opportunities, connections to multi-sector leaders, civic engagement, and professional development for participants, helping to strengthen the region’s talent pipeline in green jobs over the long term.

Grow Careers Advancing Sustainability and Food Access

The California Commercial Fishing Apprenticeship Program educates young people to prepare them for opportunities and careers in commercial fishing, covering topics such as fisheries science; conservation and practice; boat and fishing gear competency; business and marketing; and safety and seamanship. In addition, with funding awarded through the Sea Grant “Food from the Sea” Careers Program: Young Fishermen’s Development Act & Aquaculture Planning Frameworks, California Sea Grant is enhancing the current program and expanding to include aquaculture training. The training program includes both workshop instruction as well as paid, on-the-job training. Growing promising apprenticeships and training programs in commercial fishing and aquaculture such as these can prepare San Diegans from a variety of educational backgrounds for stable careers while increasing food access and sustainability.

Career Pathways in Ecosystem Management

Increased levels of maintenance necessary for parks, open space, and other natural assets has created the opportunity to nurture stable, entry-level jobs while simultaneously integrating approaches that promote ecosystem health. Occupations in clean-up and maintenance of dunes, for example, incorporate plant management, infrastructure upkeep, and other functions that have an impact on dune habitat health and on species across the broader ecosystem. Current training programs to build skills related to restoration and habitat management for those employed in landscaping, maintenance, and related fields are inadequate to support increased demand–especially with the increased need for these occupations given climate change. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office for Coastal Management offers one online training model, the Digital Coast Academy, that provides tools and training resources for those employed in occupations related to coastal management. By bringing partners together to share best practices, gaps, and workforce development approaches in adjacent fields, there is an opportunity to increase training opportunities for stable careers in adaptive management of coastal landscapes–with a particular focus on building skills that promote conservation and restoration of ecosystems.

Community Clean Energy Innovation Grants

San Diego Community Power (SDCP)’s Community Clean Energy Innovation Grants, launched in 2023,will fund projects of up to $45,000 per project that provide multiple environmental, economic, and community benefits related to clean energy. Nonprofits serving SDCP customers are eligible to seek funding for projects that advance at least one of the following goals: increase energy literacy; education related to reducing consumption and/or costs; improvements in indoor or outdoor air quality; workforce development connecting residents to careers in clean energy; mitigating, preparing for, and recovering from energy disruptions; and increasing access to clean energy for historically underserved populations. Programs like these can help to increase community leadership in clean energy resources and support training and education of more residents for well paying, stable jobs while supporting a more resilient clean energy grid.

Targeted, local hiring efforts are a key tool in driving local economic activity: by prioritizing hiring of residents and local companies, major employers in climate-supportive fields can increase employment and economic prosperity for our communities. San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) and partners such as Jingoli Power and San Diego City College have supported efforts such as the Competitive Edge workforce development program. Competitive Edge provides paid training opportunities that lead to careers in the construction and utility trades–with an emphasis on ensuring that dollars supporting projects remain within local communities. Recruiting from local communities who are underrepresented in these fields is central to this goal–and has helped to train local workers to deliver important projects including infrastructure to strengthen wildfire safety, expand electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and more. Expanding upon these efforts to grow local hiring programs would increase access to quality employment for San Diego residents.

Launched in 2016, the Port of San Diego’s Blue Economy Incubator accelerates the region’s global leadership as a hub for the blue economy, supporting growth of innovative technologies and businesses dependent upon or related to oceans and water systems that simultaneously advance sustainability. In the coming years, the Incubator will expand with additional investments in promising companies–as the Port actively explores broader Incubator growth strategies and pathways to scale the program for greater impact. Given San Diego’s deep-water harbor location, capacities in research and science, and strength in adjacent core industries including innovation, technology, and trade, the blue economy is already a major–and growing–sector, responsible for over 4,300 businesses in maritime, water and blue technology that drive over $16 billion in revenue for the region and support 114,000 jobs. Incubator expansion and growth of the sector advances a critical opportunity to bring additional economic prosperity to the region, including through stable jobs accessible to those from diverse educational backgrounds, while simultaneously tackling urgent climate challenges.

The Port’s Blue Economy Incubator helps to launch and grow promising businesses, with a focus on segments of the sector most aligned with the Port’s expertise and mission: sustainable aquaculture and Port-related blue technologies. Nine companies advancing diverse pilot projects across resilient shoreline infrastructure, shellfish and seaweed aquaculture, and water and sediment remediation technologies have participated in the program thus far. Early-stage companies that are a part of the Incubator program receive assets and services including subject matter expertise, permit-ready infrastructure, entitlement assistance, marine spatial planning tools, market access, and funding. The Port’s commitments have already totaled $1.7 million in funding and use of Port-owned property, alongside additional services and assistance.

Beyond the direct growth of affiliated businesses themselves, the Incubator and pilot projects supported by the program–through the convening power of and global partnerships catalyzed by the Port–has cultivated further regional leadership in the blue economy ecosystem while informing broader regional approaches related to topics including sea-level rise adaptation, marine debris removal management, and shellfish and seaweed aquaculture as a tool for bioremediation and restoration.

StartBlue Accelerator and BlueTech Incubator

Numerous efforts across the region are supporting entrepreneurs in launching early stage blue tech companies. StartBlue, affiliated with the University of California, San Diego’s (UCSD’s) StartR accelerator program and led by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Rady School of Management, supports new or emerging startups that seek to address ocean-related challenges through commercialization of solutions grounded in science or engineering. Participating teams receive training in ocean entrepreneurship, skills development through workshops, mentorship provided by industry leaders, technical support, and fundraising assistance. Similarly, TMA BlueTech’s BlueTech Incubator aims to support the growth of science-based ocean, water, and wastewater tech startups by providing office space, a mentorship program, connections to their global network, and other resources. Expanding initiatives such as these would help nurture the growth of companies that show the potential to connect San Diegans from an array of training backgrounds to high quality jobs while fostering economic activity and tackling climate challenges. One promising area of expansion could include an investment fund directed at promising blue tech startups whose efforts prioritize local hiring and career pathways.

San Diego County is home to more tribes and Indian reservations than any other county in the United States. Our region includes 18 federally recognized tribal nation reservations and 17 tribal governments, with the Borana and Viejas Bands sharing joint-trust and responsibility for the Capitan Grande Reservation. The following distinct cultural groups govern these reservations in addition to two tribal governments that do not have federally recognized lands, the San Luis Rey Band of Luiseño Indians and the Mount Laguna Band of Luiseño Indians.

-Kumeyaay/Diegueño (Ipai/Tipai): Barona, Campo, Capitan Grande (unoccupied), ‘Ewiiaapaayp (Cuyapaipe), Inaja-Cosmit, Jamul Indian Village, La Posta, Manzanita, Mesa Grande, San Pasqual, Santa Ysabel, Sycuan, and Viejas Indian Reservations.
-Luiseño (Quechnajuichom): La Jolla, Pala, Pauma, and Rincon Indian Reservations.
-Cupeño (Kuupiaxchem): Pala Indian Reservation (originally from Kupa–Warner Hot Springs).
-Cahuilla: Los Coyotes Indian Reservation.
-Juaneño (Acjachemen): no reservation, ceremonial grounds at San Mateo State Park.

For millennia prior to colonization, indigenous peoples were the sovereign caretakers of the land and each tribal nation had its own sustaining practices for managing natural resources and maintaining reciprocal, harmonious relationships with the natural world. However, colonization forcibly removed these peoples from their land and racist policies prevented tribal nations from performing traditional practices and cultural ceremonies. We must all confront these historical injustices and systems of oppression in order to achieve our regional vision for equity and resilience.

After decades of restrictive policies that prevented tribal nations from expanding their reservations, in May 2021, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors lifted these restrictions to allow tribal nations to buy back their land. However, permissive policies alone will not create the accessible, viable, and enabling pathways needed to return indigenous land back to indigenous hands. We must leverage the momentum built through the ongoing Land Back movement to support tribal nations in our region to reclaim stolen lands, while also exploring reparations and other mechanisms to address these historic injustices.;

Integrated Climate Research Initiatives

The SoCal Heat Hub (Hub) was launched in 2022 at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD, and funded as part of the National Science Foundation's Coastlines and People (CoPe) research initiative. Over the next five years, the Hub will generate science-based, data-driven, and co-produced research and data products that will directly benefit heat adaptation planning efforts in Southern California, and will be transferable to other coastal regions worldwide. Additionally, the Hub’s focus on teacher training and student learning is designed to broaden participation in STEM, and will empower students from communities most hard-hit by climate change and extreme heat to participate in building solutions. This effort will advance localized data on the atmosphere-land-ocean dynamics that drive and modulate patterns of extreme heat; the health impacts of extreme heat; regionally specific vegetation-temperature relationships; and the climate suitability and water needs of urban greening efforts. This research is being supported by a suite of partners, including the San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative and the Nonprofit Institute at the University of San Diego as well as the Birch Aquarium. Project efforts will be informed by local and regional government agencies, CBOs, and community groups that are already invested and engaged in climate change adaptation.

Bending the Curve: Climate Education for All

The University of California’s Bending the Curve: Climate Education for All™ is a multi-disciplinary curriculum grounded in climate change solutions. Modules span more than 50 topics and are based upon cutting-edge research led by University of California researchers. Currently this curriculum has been integrated into an undergraduate course and translated to online modules that are widely available for the public, the private sector, and other audiences. A version of the course is also offered to the public as a free Massive Online Open Course specialization through UC San Diego Online. Increasing awareness of and access to Bending the Curve, and similar educational opportunities focused on climate action, can help build understanding around the urgency for addressing climate change and the range of potential solutions among San Diegans of all backgrounds.

Disaster preparedness and response

As natural and climate-driven disasters become more frequent and severe, preparing communities in advance and mounting an effective coordinated response post-disaster is essential to ensure communities can rebound quickly. Regional partners can draw upon a wealth of resources–starting with, most importantly, the community-based organizations (CBOs) on the ground working in neighborhoods across the region everyday. Through their everyday activities, these trusted CBOs are the most important partner in communicating in advance with residents about risks and the steps every San Diegan should take to be prepared. Existing State efforts are another resource, and amplifying programs such as Listos California can ensure that we reach residents across our region in accessible ways while building a culture of preparedness. Finally, we can explore deploying new communications tools and activities, including models that build social resilience and can be activated post-disaster. These include, for example, programs that build volunteer networks of residents who check on their neighbors–particularly seniors, those with underlying health conditions, and others who are vulnerable–during climate driven events, such as extreme heat or severe storms. Building off existing efforts and programs and integrating additional best practices, we can coordinate a communications campaign to educate and raise awareness about climate impacts while equipping community members–particularly, those who are most vulnerable–with the information they need to prepare. This collaborative effort should engage multiple sectors, jurisdictions, and organizations to streamline information and ensure diverse audiences are engaged.

Many communities across our region face barriers in accessing fresh produce–with food scarcity and food deserts perpetuating and exacerbating existing inequities. Aquaponics–the practice of raising plants and fish in a unified system–allows for more sustainable agricultural practices where fresh produce can be grown using less land and water and without causing pollution. This method shows potential for improving local access to produce, including in neighborhoods that have historically lacked access to nutritious foods. EcoLife is exploring how aquaponic systems can be installed on roofs, in mobile systems powered by solar panels, and on brownfield sites whose toxic soils are no longer productive for agriculture. Aquaponic systems create opportunities for cultivating and growing food that are resilient to ongoing climate shocks and stresses affecting traditional agriculture, such as persistence through drought cycles and severe storms, alongside co-benefits such as cooling through greening in urban centers.

A regenerative farm in Encinitas, Coastal Roots Farm incorporates growing practices that are designed to be resilient in the face of climate impacts like drought, extreme heat, and storms while building and strengthening community. During the COVID-19 pandemic its “Farm Stand” responded to the crisis, adapting its program to provide food to families in need. Youth and volunteer activities bring people from both coastal and inland communities to the farm for hands-on learning experiences around growing practices. Connecting community members from across the region to nature helps to support a space for conversation and dialogue around the impacts of climate change, while demonstrating the potential of resilient farming practices in sustaining and feeding communities.

Numerous innovative programs across the region educate youth while deepening their sense of connection to nature. These programs contribute to our region in many ways, addressing long standing inequities, building pathways for increased economic mobility, strengthening connectivity between inland communities and the coast, and expanding the cohort of young people who can be stewards and advocates for the environment, both now and well into the future. Studies suggest that young people who participate in these kinds of hands-on environmental learning activities are more likely to be involved in conservation efforts later in life. By building upon the region’s already robust network of programs–fostering additional investment in effective approaches and launching additional efforts–partners can augment this solid foundation and continue laying the groundwork for the next generation of climate advocates.
The Ocean Discovery Institute (ODI) is one organization that offers tuition-free ocean science opportunities, mentoring programs, and other resources to young people in underserved communities, reaching 6,000 students per year. Participation in ODI’s programs helps to provide leadership pathways and prepare young people for high quality science, technology, engineering, and math careers, with targeted programming in the City Heights neighborhood–a vibrant inland community where virtually all students are eligible for free or reduced lunch programs, but are underserved by rigorous science opportunities. In and out of school programs include hands-on learning, field trips to coastal environments, career-connected leadership programs, camps, community events, and more. WildCoast also offers numerous youth focused programs, including community science experiences and a tidepool ambassador program where students lead development of tidepooling etiquette recommendations based on labs exploring local tidepools within marine protected areas. Finally, the local Boy Scouts chapter, including through programming at the Youth Aquatic Center on Fiesta Island in Mission Bay Park, supports numerous service, recreation, and education-oriented activities that foster stewardship among young people, including for many who may otherwise be less exposed to the outdoors and to coastal environments.

Accessible Environmental Education

Partners across the region will amplify, support, and expand programs that engage youth in environmental education and help young people access viable career pathways in related fields. These programs increase access for our region’s future workforce to quality jobs while fostering connectivity to the environment that will benefit future generations. Programs should prioritize equity, with a focus on efforts that build economic mobility for historically underinvested communities.

San Diego Coastkeeper, in partnership with Groundwork San Diego-Chollas Creek and Outdoor Outreach, leads one such effort, launching the BIPOC Youth Science Program in 2021 to provide environmental education, leadership, more equitable access to the outdoors, and workforce training programs to high-school students of color. The program provides students aged 14-18 with the opportunity to participate in a paid experience to engage with and learn about the environmental impacts their communities are facing. Students gain hands-on experience with water quality testing and explore themes including environmental racism, equity, and accessibility. The curriculum integrates career development and networking opportunities as well as other activities to inspire students to pursue STEM careers. San Diego Coastkeeper continues to expand accessibility across the Chollas Creek community by providing stipends to participants.

The Summer Leadership Program led by Outdoor Outreach also provides a paid eight-week training experience for young adults across the region. Daily workshops and outdoor training experiences are focused on skills building, leadership, and workforce development–helping participants become more civically engaged and prepared for future careers.

Since 2015, the San Diego Foundation’s Opening the Outdoors grant program has distributed over $6 million to nonprofit organizations that preserve outdoor spaces, increase equitable access to the outdoors, and support the next generation of environmental stewards across the region. These investments have supported over 100 local nonprofit organizations in increasing access for 65,000 youth and families to the outdoors. Programs have engaged over 55,000 volunteers and residents in community outreach, education, and other activities; helped to protect or improve over 75,000 acres of green space; and created or restored over 70 miles of trails. With the Foundation leading the way in continued growth of this program, with the next round of grantmaking anticipated to launch in early 2024, efforts such as these are ripe for replication, amplification, and growth among additional regional partners in order to reach more young people.

Expanding the Reach of Museums & Aquariums

Museums, aquariums, and other cultural centers are essential community spaces for gathering and learning. As they amplify information about new and emerging discoveries in engaging ways, these facilities are also stewards of invaluable environmental and social histories. For children and adults alike, these spaces bring residents across our region closer together and create pathways to build knowledge while strengthening understanding of our relationship to the environment. These opportunities for learning and discovery create new spaces for reflection and healing through the often traumatic lived experiences of climate change–like rapid erosion, land loss, sea level rise, severe storms, flooding, and diminishing biodiversity. Partners will work to uplift and expand the work of museums, aquariums, and other essential community anchors–including through efforts to reach more residents across our region.