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Regional Climate Change Impacts Assessment

The Commission’s primary climate change efforts have been focused on the impacts of sea level rise, but, as noted in the California Climate Adaptation Strategy, the Bay Area will also have to address other significant climate change impacts, including public health problems arising from more extremely hot days and poorer air quality; longer and more intense wildfire conditions; possible disruptions in fresh water supplies; and vastly different natural resource conditions.

To better understand the region’s vulnerability to these possible impacts and to develop adaptation mechanisms for dealing with them, the Commission is working in partnership with the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) to analyze climate impacts and identify potential adaptation responses that are specific to the Bay Area. Local academic experts are drafting this vulnerability analysis with the University of California at Berkeley as the project lead. Major funding is provided by the State of California through the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Program. The results of the analysis will be provided to the Joint Policy Committee (JPC) for use in the One Bay Area program that is providing information and guidance to local governments, business and other institutions and advice to the general public on steps that can be taken to reduce the impacts of climate change and to adapt to those impacts that cannot be avoided. This guidance can include the Commission’s advice to local governments on how to deal with the planning and regulation of development in areas vulnerable to flooding. The Commission’s NOAA 309 grant will support integration of this work into the ART Project.

The grant calls for BCDC staff to support the UC Berkeley impacts assessment team by convening a panel of technical experts in the subject areas researchers are studying, to ensure that regional perspectives are reflected in the work. In addition, a regional symposium would be convened on climate impacts, vulnerabilities and adaptation options and to mobilize regional interest in adaptation planning. The symposium will bring the results of the Bay Area Climate Impacts Report to decision makers and interested stakeholders in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. To directly support the ART Project, researchers from the UC Berkeley team and other area researchers will be invited to present their work in the ART  subregion to better inform local participants of the likely impacts of climate change. The grant will also support the preparation of a community sea level rise impact assessment, an adaptation planning roadmap, and will support public participation by the local community segment of the ART Project subregion by funding the planning and implementation of community meetings.

Contact

Wendy Goodfriend
Senior Coastal Planner
San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
50 California Street, Suite 2600
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 352-3646
wendyg@bcdc.ca.go