THE HORIZONTAL LEVEECOASTAL STORM-SURGE BARRIER

The Oro Loma Project

Contents

Rising Tides in San Francisco Bay 1

A Closer Look: Sea Level Rise and Shoreline Flooding 4

San Francisco Bay’s Natural Flood Defense 6

A Closer Look: Tidal Marsh—The Bay’s Front-Line Defense Against Sea Level Rise

9

THE HORIZONTAL LEVEE® Coastal Storm-Surge Barrier 10

* “Horizontal Levee” is a registered trademark of The Bay Institute.

A Closer Look: THE ORO LOMA HORIZONTAL LEVEE 12

Cleaning Pollution with Nature’s Wetlands 14

Habitat and High Water Refuge 16

A Regional Stategy 18

Findings and Recommendations 20

Acknowledgements 21

Beneath the Golden Gate Bridge the oldest tide gauge on the west coast recorded a rise in sea level of almost eight inches between 1900 and 2000. The increase has caused recent storms to inflict greater flood and erosion damage on low-lying coastal communities. Current forecasts project that mean sea level will rise another 14 inches by 2050. By 2100, scientists estimate an increase of 55 inches. Some amount of sea level rise is inevitable, and major public facilities such as highways, railroads and airports are threatened with flooding.

Scientists have known for decades that coastal wetlands protect oceanfront cities from the powerful destructive forces of storms. Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans with much greater force because of the massive loss of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands. Now even politicians are calling for accelerated restoration of Gulf Coast wetlands to help buffer the impact of future storms.

As in New Orleans and other heavily urbanized coastal cities, tens of billions of dollars have been invested in development, both commercial and residential, along the shoreline of San Francisco Bay. These developments are threatened by increasingly fierce storms as sea level continues to rise.

San Francisco Bay possesses a very large inventory of restorable marshes that could help to significantly reduce the damage caused by future storms. Wetland restoration efforts have been underway in San Francisco Bay for over thirty years. Starting with small, experimental projects in the late 1970s, they have evolved into a region-wide program with a goal to restore over 100,000 acres of bay marshes. However, that program has only lately come to incorporate sea level rise projections into restoration design. Scientists now recognize that, toward the end of the century, many of the Bay’s restored wetlands will be at risk of being drowned by rising seas.

RISING TIDES IN SAN FRANCISCO BAY

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One hundred ninety-six thousand acres of tidal marshlands thrived in San Francisco Bay’s shallows before 1850. Along with serving as nursery grounds for estuary fisheries, the marshlands functioned as barrier islands that protected the shore from erosive storm surges. During the last century and a half, 180,000 acres of these marshes were filled, diked or drained. Some of the drained tidal wetlands were intensively developed, such as San Francisco’s Financial and Marina districts, Foster City, and San Francisco International Airport, but most of these diked wetlands were converted to solar salt evaporation ponds and agriculture lands. They remain today as salt ponds, hay farms and other open

spaces that lie between the open waters of the bay and the developed shoreline. Scientists refer to these diked tidal marshes as the San Francisco “baylands.”

The San Francisco baylands have subsided relative to sea level as a result of having been disconnected from the tidal waters of the bay. Though the original marsh plains once existed at an elevation well above mean sea level, their surface elevation has subsided to roughly five to ten feet below sea level. An extensive network of earthen levees prevents bay tidal waters from inundating these sunken baylands. The levees are in relatively poor condition in most locations, though some levees that protect more intensively developed areas are maintained to a higher standard.

37,000 acres of tidal marshes were destroyed to create solar salt evaporation ponds.

The Lost Marshlands of San Francisco Bay

3,000 years old tidal marsh channels survive in salt ponds.

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Historic and existing baylands habitats throughout San Francisco Bay. Most tidal marshes in the North Bay were converted to agricultural fields, while marshes in the South Bay were largely converted to commercial salt ponds and other industrial uses. Of the original 196,000-acre tidal marsh complex, 180,000 acres were destroyed. From the Baylands Habitat Goals Project 1999.

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San Francisco Bay’s existing system of shoreline flood protection structures is haphazardly designed and maintained. Levees are overtopped regularly in key locations, resulting in flooding of vital public facilities, especially heavily used roads and highways. The flood management system has relied for decades on an aging network of earthen dikes that are continually sinking into soft bay mud. Rising sea level is making the network obsolete.

Sea level rose in San Francisco Bay by more than seven inches between 1900 and 2000 as a result of global warming. The California Ocean Protection Council estimates that sea level will rise an additional 14 inches by 2050 and up to 55 inches by 2100. The greatest threat to the developed shoreline in the near term is not posed by flooding caused by increased mean sea levels on calm days, but by flooding caused by increasingly frequent storms that occur in combination with higher tides.

This study examines strategies to use San Francisco Bay’s recovering tidal marsh ecosystem as an opportunity to help shoreline communities manage the impacts of sea level rise. Specifically, it considers the flood protection functions that tidal marshes perform naturally and evaluates the merits of integrating marshes into a multi-purpose shoreline management regime to reduce flood risk. It examines the current functions of Bay tidal marshes as well as of current flood risk management practices. It considers how environmental conditions are likely to change in the era of global warming and how to best adapt flood risk management practices in response to those changes. The study’s intended audience is planners, politicians, regulators and other stakeholders with the authority to make or affect decisions that influence the configuration and use of the San Francisco Bay shoreline.

Area potentially exposed to an approximate 55-inch sea level rise

Area potentially exposed to an approximate 16-inch sea level rise

No data

San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission San Francisco Bay Area

Shoreline Areas Potentially Exposed

To Sea Level Rise

SOURCE: Knowles, N. 2008. Siegel, S.W. and P. A. M. Bachand, 2002.

2 40 8 MILES

NORTH

San FranciscoBay

PacificOcean

San PabloBay

Richmond

San Jose

SanFrancisco

SanRafael

Fremont

Oakland

Vallejo

Martinez Pittsburg

DISCLAIMER: The inundation data used in these maps do not account for shoreline protection or wave activity. These maps are for informational purposes only. Users agree to hold harmless and blameless the State of California and its representatives and its agents for any liability associated with the use of the maps. The maps and data shall not be used to assess actual coastal hazards,insurance requirements, or property values or be used in lieu of Flood Insurance Rate Maps issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Sea level rise data provided by:

Potential inundation with 16 and 55 inches of sea level rise. (From San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission.)

Sea Level Rise and Shoreline Flooding

A Closer Look

4

Area potentially exposed to an approximate 55-inch sea level rise

Area potentially exposed to an approximate 16-inch sea level rise

No data

San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission San Francisco Bay Area

Shoreline Areas Potentially Exposed

To Sea Level Rise

SOURCE: Knowles, N. 2008. Siegel, S.W. and P. A. M. Bachand, 2002.

2 40 8 MILES

NORTH

San FranciscoBay

PacificOcean

San PabloBay

Richmond

San Jose

SanFrancisco

SanRafael

Fremont

Oakland

Vallejo

Martinez Pittsburg

DISCLAIMER: The inundation data used in these maps do not account for shoreline protection or wave activity. These maps are for informational purposes only. Users agree to hold harmless and blameless the State of California and its representatives and its agents for any liability associated with the use of the maps. The maps and data shall not be used to assess actual coastal hazards,insurance requirements, or property values or be used in lieu of Flood Insurance Rate Maps issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Sea level rise data provided by:

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREASHORELINE AREASPOTENTIALLY EXPOSEDTO SEA LEVEL RISE

A Change in the Weather

Storm surges occurring atop higher sea levels already are causing increased flooding within the San Francisco baylands, as well as within low-lying developed areas near the bay. Major roads along the shoreline are regularly flooded during winter storms and high tides. Residential and commercial areas within bay area cities similarly are experiencing increased flooding. The aging network of bayland levees is increasingly overburdened and will prove thoroughly inadequate as sea level continues to rise during the coming decades.

The National Academy of Sciences predicts that, “the incidence of extreme high water events (1.4 m above historical mean sea level) in the San Francisco Bay area will increase substantially with sea level rise, from less than 10 hours per decade today to a few hundred hours per decade by 2050 and to several thousand hours per decade by 2100.” (NAS, 2012.) The NAS notes the important role that coastal wetlands can play in reducing the destructive force of these storms.

Rising sea levels also threaten to submerge large areas of tidal marshes, including many areas that have been restored over the past 35 years. These projects are part of a regional marsh restoration initiative that has quietly grown into the nation’s largest coastal wetland restoration program. The purpose of the program is to reverse the historic trend of wetland destruction in order to recover the significant benefits provided by tidal marshes and associated wetlands. Those benefits include providing habitat for numerous wildlife species and performing vital flood protection functions.

The decades ahead offer a window of opportunity to restore San Francisco Bay tidal wetlands. Restored marshes would not only provide greatly expanded areas of habitat for declining wildlife populations, but would also provide tangible flood protection benefits, buying time to develop long-term solutions to the problem of sea level rise. A restored tidal wetland buffer would reduce the frequency and magnitude of shoreline flooding, and thereby reduce the significant costs of defending and rebuilding valuable development.

Adapting to Higher Tides

Valuable development built atop Bay tidal marshes is at risk. Redwood City shoreline.

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The Bay Institute’s analysis determined that tidal marshes can significantly reduce the destructive power of storm surge. This finding suggests that shoreline flood protection is improved significantly when areas of tidal marsh exist between the developed shoreline and the open waters of the bay. Further, it indicates that by using tidal marsh in combination with a levee constructed at the landward edge of the marsh, the size of the levee can be reduced significantly while still providing the same level of flood protection as would be provided by a larger levee that was not fronted by tidal marsh.

The Bay Institute’s study describes and evaluates the costs and benefits of employing marsh restoration as an adaptation strategy to rising sea levels in San Francisco Bay. Although the study’s particulars pertain to San Francisco Bay, they can be extrapolated to many similar coastal areas around the nation and the globe. From San Francisco Bay to the Gulf Coast, from Holland to the Rhone River Delta in France, and from Tokyo to London, hundreds of coastal urban centers are beginning to lament having destroyed valuable tidal marshes, and are considering ways to recapture the substantial free benefits that they provided.

SAN FRANCISCO BAY’S NATURAL FLOOD DEFENSE

Surviving ancient tidal marsh near Petaluma.

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Tidal Marshes Reduce Shoreline FloodingThe Bay Institute examined two strategies to prevent or reduce

the impact of shoreline flooding in San Francisco Bay caused by sea level rise. We compared the traditional approach that relies on construction of engineered earthen dikes to a hybrid approach that combines tidal marsh restoration with construction of dikes. First, we analyzed the capacity of tidal marshes to reduce wave run-up and overtopping and, thereby, reduce the need to build larger dikes in the absence of buffering tidal marsh. Second, we compared the costs of the two approaches.

Our analysis concluded that tidal marsh can reduce wave energy in extreme storm events by over 50%, and that a hybrid flood protection system comprising a landward levee and an adjacent tidal marsh provides an equivalent level of flood protection to that of a much larger landward levee alone. Further, the cost of the hybrid system is almost half that of the traditional levee alone. These results suggest that it would be far more cost effective to build a hybrid flood protection system than it would to build a conventional earthen levee.

Reduction in Wave Height Over Marsh for Different Water Levels

0 200 400 600 800 10000.0

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Wav

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eig

ht O

ver M

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ave

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ght

Width of Marsh, ft

Spring Tide

50% Annual Chance

1% Annual Chance

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Tidal Marshes Save Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

Sea level rise caused by global warming is already inflicting damage to developed areas along the San Francisco Bay shoreline. That damage and its associated costs will increase as sea level rise accelerates. The current flood management system is inadequate to maintain sufficient levels of protection. Important public infrastructure, including highways, bridges, roads, rail lines, utilities and airports, will experience increased damage from flooding in the coming decades. In the near term, between now and the second half of the 21st century, the bulk of that damage will be inflicted by storms arriving on higher tides.

The conventional and, until now, presumed least costly approach to addressing flood risk has been to increase the height and bulk of levees. (Other more costly alternatives include construction of sea walls and tidal barriers.) Although it has been recognized for many years that tidal marshes and associated wetlands provide tangible flood protection benefits, those benefits generally have been dismissed during planning and construction of flood protection networks.

An effort is currently underway across the entire San Francisco Bay to restore vast tracts of tidal marshes and associated wetlands. However, design of these restoration projects has generally not incorporated provisions for long-term sea level rise. In order to fully realize the benefits of the marsh restoration program, new designs must be developed and implemented that can accommodate increasing sea levels.

This study identifies two strategies that can be employed to accomplish two critical public policy objectives. First, tidal marsh

restoration can be used as an effective flood protection method that is far more cost effective than traditional approaches. Second, a new marsh restoration paradigm can facilitate marsh survival during the current era of sea level rise, thereby protecting important marsh functions.

The study clearly finds that nature’s capital is quite tangible and can be put to much greater benefit than is currently the case. It further demonstrates that to continue to rely on old solutions is far more costly to society. It points the way to a powerful tool in the sea level rise adaptation toolbox.

Levee Cost/Mile (In Millions) Over 50 Years

Cos

t per

Mile

Shoreline Type

0

$2M

$4M

$6M

$8M

$10M

$12M

$14M

Traditional Levee Brackish MarshTidal Marsh

Earthen Levee

Tidal MarshEarthen Levee

Earthen Levee

Tidal Marsh

Brackish Marsh

8

$12.5M

$6.29M $6.69M

An unofficial program of tidal marsh restoration has been underway in San Francisco Bay for over 30 years. During this time, this program has grown to become the largest coastal wetland restoration project in the United States. Its goal is to restore as much of the vast tidal marsh ecosystem that existed before the California Gold Rush as possible. Restoration advocates hope that the complex functions of the Bay’s intertidal network of meandering sloughs and pickleweed isles can be revitalized, and that something approaching the variety and abundance of plant and animal species that once thrived there will rebound and flourish.

A fundamental premise of tidal marsh restoration is that these habitats will restore themselves naturally if proper conditions are created initially. Wetland restoration scientists have learned that natural tidal marsh restoration processes can take years or even decades to establish self-sustaining marshes.

Two basic presumptions—that the primary purpose of marsh restoration is to recover depleted habitat for wildlife, and that the process of restoration should be allowed to happen on nature’s timescale—have been called into question by forecasts of increased rates of sea level rise caused by global warming. Wetland scientists now believe that these forecasts suggest that many restored and restorable marshes will be submerged if no action is taken.

Current forecasts indicate that San Francisco Bay’s original zone of intertidal habitat—a vast area comprising almost 200,000 acres—will experience much greater flood risk in the future, threatening large areas of essential shoreline development in addition to wildlife habitat. Consequently, wetland managers are considering whether it is possible to modify current restoration strategies to accomplish two additional objectives: enable restored marshes to keep pace with sea level rise and improve flood protection of developed shoreline areas.

This study considers whether it is possible to accomplish these two objectives by employing a multi-purpose, integrated approach to restoring and managing San Francisco Bay’s original intertidal zone.

Tidal marshes provide flood protection for shoreline development.

TIDAL MARSH—The Bay’s Front-Line Defense Against Sea Level Rise

A Closer Look

Levee Cost/Mile (In Millions) Over 50 Years

9

THE HORIZONTAL LEVEE Coastal Storm-Surge Barrier is a new concept in coastal flood protection that can be applied during the current era of sea level rise. It uses the natural flood protection benefits of coastal tidal marshes to reduce the destructive forces of storms. In San Francisco Bay we are well on our way to restoring the massive tidal marsh complex that existed here prior to European colonization. By modifying the design and accelerating implementation, the restored tidal marsh network can play a key role in protecting communities and essential infrastructure around the Bay’s shoreline for several decades.

THE HORIZONTAL LEVEE Coastal Storm-Surge Barrier incorporates a brackish marsh at the landward edge of typical tidal marsh restoration designs. The brackish marsh would function as

a self-maintaining levee, building in elevation as plant root systems expand. It accelerates vertical growth of the marsh plain in order to keep pace with sea level rise. Similar brackish, back-marsh networks existed historically as part of the shoreline wetland complex, but were destroyed to make way for development.

This new marsh restoration paradigm would use sediment dredged from nearby flood control channels as construction material for the brackish marsh substrate. That material currently is excavated from those channels and disposed of in landfills. Reclaimed wastewater from existing public treatment plants would be used to irrigate the marsh. Water treatment plants currently spend considerable sums to pipe, pump and discharge wastewater at distant locations in the bay.

THE HORIZONTAL LEVEE COASTAL STORM-SURGE BARRIER

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Green Infrastructure for the Global Warming Era

Levee Brackish Marsh

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THE HORIZONTAL LEVEE Coastal Storm-Surge Barrier

Implementation of this new approach will require that the current informal San Francisco Bay wetland restoration program be integrated into a broader shoreline management program that incorporates flood management and water treatment infrastructure, and that it be adequately funded. The best model for this integrated approach is the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency’s geographic program. The EPA geographic program is built on an interagency

foundation that draws from the combined expertise of multiple federal, state and local agencies, as well as from nongovernmental organizations and private enterprise. Creation of an EPA geographic program for San Francisco Bay will accelerate completion of the new green shoreline infrastructure in response to the immediate threat of sea level rise, while saving hundreds of millions of dollars compared to current practices.

Tidal Marsh

Tidal Mud Flat

Shallow Bay

A Closer Look

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A vacant 10-acre field adjacent to the Oro Loma/Castro Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant is being reconfigured to mimic a long-lost natural landscape on the bay’s edge. Scientists hope the idea may enable the facility to withstand rising seas and more frequent storms caused by climate change. If it works, the project may offer a new model for protecting shoreline communities from flooding, restoring wetlands and cleaning pollutants from San Francisco Bay for the next 50 years.

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The Oro LomaHORIZONTAL LEVEE“Responding to sea level rise in an environmentally friendly way is a decent win—but it can be a grand slam if it succeeds in addressing the water quality, flooding and wetland loss problems we face on our shorelines all at once.”

—Jason Warner, General Manager

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Waste water flowing through the Oro Loma Horizontal Levee will be tested at twelve sampling stations that are built into its base.

Wastewater treatment plants have long used wetlands for additional treatment of municipal wastewater effluent; it is well known that the natural bacterial and biological processes in wetlands can break down contaminants and remove nutrients that cause excessive algal growth in the Bay. In the Oro Loma project, the new treatment wetland and basin will not only enhance the quality of the treated wastewater before it reaches the horizontal levee, it will also do critical double-duty as a storage facility during wet weather. During a storm or peak flow event, the basin is designed to store up to 8 million gallons of enhanced primary treated wastewater. Once rainfall subsides, this wastewater can be returned to the plant for additional treatment.

The Oro Loma Horizontal Levee uses plants and soil microbes to remove potentially harmful nutrients and other pollutants from treated wastewater. After passing through a pre-treatment wetland full of cattails and bulrushes, scientists estimate 10-30 percent of nutrients will be removed. The water will then seep into a buried layer of gravel and wood chips to trigger two essential natural processes. First, microbes living in the wood chips will absorb nitrates and release inert nitrogen gas through a process known as denitrification. Second, wetland plants growing in the soil above will sink roots down to the gravel layer and take up some of the water and nutrients. Researchers will test water to measure how effective the Horizontal Levee is at removing nutrients and other pollutants. Project managers hope that research will demonstrate that the water will be so

clean that it can simply be allowed to flow freely across shoreline marshes.

Cleaning Pollution with Nature’s Wetlands

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ORO LOMA HORIZONTAL LEVEE PROJECT — Plan View

Horizontal Levee

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Habitat and High Water RefugeThe Oro Loma Horizontal Levee Project recreates a gently sloping vegetated

terrace on the Bay side of the levee, mimicking natural shoreline features lost over more than a century of development. These natural transition zones (scientists call them ecotone slopes) between the Bay and the dry uplands once accumulated sediment eroded from upper watersheds.

Transition zones naturally do all the things necessary to keep marshy shorelines from drowning under rising seas. They can raise surface elevation by accumulating sediment, bulking up with decaying plant matter and migrating landward.

As sea level rises and flood risk increases, the endangered wild birds and

mammals of the tidal marsh need places to escape high water. The addition of new marsh transition slopes could greatly increase wildlife survival rates during storms and high tides. Vegetated marsh slopes also provide wildlife with protective cover to hide from predators. With 570 miles of levees in the Bay Area, if only 25 percent were converted to Horizontal Levees the region would gain 5,000 acres of new wetland habitat.

Harnessing these natural processes for the protection of both humans and the Bay ecosystem is what the Oro Loma Horizontal Levee project is all about.

Volunteers from Save the Bay plant native wetland vegetation in the Oro Loma Horizontal Levee.

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Photo-realistic illustration of the north boundary of the Oro Loma Sanitary District, looking south. The engineered levee lies beneath the recreation path adjacent to the hous-ing development. (Nate Kauffman—LEAP: Live Edge Adaptation Project)

“The most noteworthy thing about these images of the Oro Loma horizontal levee is what you don’t see…no 15’ high flood protection wall of rock! The horizontal levee is a gentle slope of natural

grasslands and wetlands that provides every bit the flood protection benefits of a concrete wall…that, and restored marshes for wildlife.”

—Mike Connor, East Bay Dischargers Authority

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A REGIONAL STRATEGYWhen roads, pipelines, airports and other critical infrastructure were built

along the shores of San Francisco Bay, no one imagined that sea level would rise so dramatically in the 21st century. Today the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration lists the Bay Area as one of the top ten most vulnerable metropolitan regions in the country.

The Oro Loma Horizontal Levee incorporates recommendations of a 2015 scientific study calling for accelerated restoration of 100,000 acres of Bay wetlands to adapt to seal level rise and other impacts of climate change. Horizontal levees that function as transition zone habitat will be needed to protect endangered species such as the Ridgway rail and salt marsh harvest mouse. The study also calls for restoring estuary-watershed connections that nourish shoreline marshes with sediment and freshwater.

Making North Bay and Suisun Bay landscapes more adaptive will be easier, as there are many remnants of original transition zones and very little development. In the South Bay, thousands of acres of former salt ponds offer a vast canvas on which to rejuvenate the wetland ecosystem. In the East Bay however, space between urban development and the shore is more limited, suggesting the need for more highly engineered and complex adaptations to rising seas.

The Oro Loma site is located midway along the alignment of a 22-mile-long buried pipeline that collects treated wastewater from six treatment plants and pumps it to a discharge point in deep waters off the San Leandro Marina. If the Oro Loma project succeeds, it is possible that construction of a Horizontal Levee could be a feasible management approach along the entire East Bay shoreline, protecting against rising seas, eliminating pollutants, restoring valuable wildlife habitat and avoiding the high costs of rebuilding and maintaining pipelines and traditional levees.

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Photo-realistic illustration of San Leandro shoreline, looking north, with possible future configuration of horizontal levee fronted by restored wetlands. The Horizontal Levee is the pale green band immediately adjacent to the boundary with developed areas. Oro Loma Sanitary District treatment plant is in lower right corner. San Leandro marina is at upper left. (Nate Kauffman—LEAP: Live Edge Adaptation Project)

Recommendations• THE HORIZONTAL LEVEE Coastal Storm-Surge Barrier should be adopted regionally as a key element in a cost-effective,

multi-benefit shoreline management strategy.

• Public agencies should establish partnerships to accelerate design and implementation of a regional HORIZONTAL LEVEE Coastal Storm-Surge Barrier green infrastructure program. Flood management districts, water and sanitation agencies, and wildlife agencies should be core, managing partners.

• Congress should establish a San Francisco Bay Geographic Program within the Environmental Protection Agency and authorize funding of at least $1 billion over a ten-year period for the purpose of coordinating and implementing a regional HORIZONTAL LEVEE Coastal Storm-Surge Barrier adaptation program. The Program should also investigate other cost-effective green infrastructure strategies that hold promise to adapt to sea level rise and other climate change impacts.

Findings• The greatest threat to developed areas along the shoreline of San Francisco Bay prior to the latter part of the century is from

flooding caused by storms occurring during periods of high tides, not from elevated sea levels alone.

• Prior to the latter half of the century it is possible to adapt to sea level rise and protect existing land uses by employing strategic modifications of shoreline management systems.

• Tidal marshes can provide significant flood protection benefits by reducing wave energy during storms.

• Flood protection costs could be reduced by almost 50% by integrating marsh restoration into a new multi-purpose system.

• A hybrid tidal marsh flood protection system—the HORIZONTAL LEVEE Coastal Storm-Surge Barrier—can be constructed to keep pace with sea level rise for several decades in critical locations if construction begins immediately.

• If construction of the HORIZONTAL LEVEE Coastal Storm-Surge Barrier system is delayed for too long, it will be unable to keep pace with expected sea level increases and will fail to provide the desired flood protection and habitat benefits.

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The Bay Institute Horizontal Levee Study

THE ORO LOMA HORIZONTAL LEVEE PROJECT

350 Bay Street, #100 PMB 316, San Francisco, CA 94133

P: 415.262.4735 F: 415.623.5324 E: bayinfo@bay.org

Project Sponsors Oro Loma Sanitary Distrct

Castro Valley Sanitary District

Project Partners Save the Bay

ReNUWIt

The Bay Institute

San Francisco Estuary Partnership

Project Funders California Department of Water Resources

Oro Loma Sanitary District

Castro Valley Sanitary District

THE HORIZONTAL LEVEE COASTAL STORM-SURGE BARRIER

Study by ESA PWA Jeremy Lowe, Lead Author

Marc Holmes, The Bay Institute

Nate Kauffman | N8Kauffman.com

bay.org