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Sea Level Rise Guidance updates

The Council heard about updates made to the Sea Level Rise Guidance document. In 2010, the Coast and Ocean Climate Action Team (CO-CAT) developed Interim Sea Level Rise Guidance to serve state agencies while a robust report by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was generated. The NAS report was released in 2012 and the Sea Level Rise Guidance Document was updated by incorporating the new science from that report.  The changes in the document were summarized, including slightly different Sea Level Rise projections and discussion of the hazards related with coastal storm impacts, particularly in the next thirty to forty years. The Coastal and Ocean Climate Action Team will continue to conduct outreach and ensure that the Guidance is useful to state agencies.

Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia

The Council received a brief update of the state of the science in California along with an update on the California Ocean Acidification Panel. The Ocean Science Trust assembled an Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Science Panel comprised of subject matter experts to address the informational needs on both topics. The panel includes experts from Oregon, Washington and federal level agencies and managers. Dr. Steve Weisberg, an OST SAT member, stated that public interest in ocean acidification and hypoxia is increasing and that that OPC prioritization of this issue has helped increase focus on the issue statewide, linking the science to management needs. Dr. Weisberg described fundamental science related to ocean acidification and hypoxia that is presently under examination.

Local Coastal Program Sea Level Rise Grant Program

Mary Small, Deputy Secretary of the State Coastal Conservancy updated the council on the status of the Grants Program and described the draft grant criteria. The purpose of grant program is to help local governments to update their LCPs to protect important coastal resources. Susan Hansch expressed the California Coastal Commission’s support for this item.

Central Coast Symposium

The results of the most widespread effort to assess the state of the central coast ocean ecosystem were reported in the Symposium. Together, the Ocean Protection Council, the Ocean Science Trust, the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Fish and Game Commission has developed an internal work plan for marine protected areas in order to divide up the work in meaningful ways to create an understanding of shared goals and shared core values. They committed to a strong partnership for ocean management and particularly for marine protected area management.

Election of Council Chair

Secretary Laird was re-elected Council Chairperson unanimously.

For more meeting details, please visit our website: http://www.opc.ca.gov/category/meetings/

To request a hard copy please contact Emily Knight of the OST.

To learn more about the partnership between the Ocean Protection Council and the Ocean Science Trust, please click on the “‘more” tab:

The Partnership between the OPC and the OST:
The Ocean Science Trust (OST) provides science-support for the California Ocean Protection Council (OPC). As part of the OPC’s core mission, the Council solicits the best available science to support policy decisions and recommendations, making the Council a uniquely objective, nonpartisan body. The OPC has demonstrated its commitment to this mandate by, among other things:

• Designating the executive director of OST as its science advisor
• Relying on OST to coordinate the OPC Science Advisory Team (OPC-SAT), a multi-disciplinary advisory body of 24 scientists from a variety of research institutions in California and beyond
• Requesting OST to coordinate independent peer review of all the OPC’s scientific proposals and reports

The OST was formally established pursuant to the California Ocean Resources Stewardship Act (CORSA) of 2000. CORSA charged OST to act as a boundary organization by seeking and providing funds for ocean resource science projects, and facilitating coordinated, multi-agency and multi-institution approaches to applying ocean science to management and policy. OST maintains its nonprofit 501(c)(3) public benefit corporation status by upholding a comprehensive set of governing principles, policies, and procedures that guard the organization against influence, layered with oversight by a board of trustees composed of an array of state representatives, scientists, and interest groups.

The OST’s status as an independent non-profit organization is one of our key strengths in achieving their mission. Because the OST is not a government entity, it can act as an independent and unbiased broker between policy-makers, managers, and the scientific community.

In the meantime, we have provided a username and password that would allow you to continue to use the Coastal Geoportal and to provide us with feedback before we officially launch it for public use. Please do not share the username and password beyond your agency. We anticipate that a formal launch will occur in summer 2013, and we will also provide additional agency trainings at that time.

During the beta-testing period, we will be adding a new feature in California Coastal Geoportal that allows you to provide us with any comments/feedback. Please provide feedback on the Coastal Geoportal through the feedback form, available here.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Laura Engeman (OPC), Clare O’Reilly (OPC), Aaron McGregor (OST), Tim Doherty (NOAA), or your agency GIS contact.

Proposals are requested for projects that address the purposes of the Baseline Program, which are:

1. To provide a summary description, assessment, and understanding of ecological and socioeconomic conditions, or ‘benchmark’ in the North Coast region, inside and outside MPAs designated pursuant to the Marine Life Protection Act, against which future MPA performance can be measured; and

 2. To document initial ecological changes and the short-term net socioeconomic benefits or costs following MPA implementation.

The deadline for submission of project proposals is 5:00 p.m. PDT August 14, 2013. Awards are anticipated to be made in October 2013. Proposals will be accepted for projects of any duration up to three years, with anticipated award start date of early 2014 and end date of early 2017. This opportunity is contingent upon continued availability of state funding.

The North Coast MPA Baseline Program Bidders Conference will be held on May 9, 2013 from 4:00-7:30 p.m. at the Humboldt Bay Aquatic Center. This conference will provide more information to potential applicants and aims to facilitate partnerships and information exchange among applicants and collaborators, including those involved in existing monitoring programs in the region. RSVPs for the bidders conference should be made to sgmpaproposal@ucsd.edu (please use “Bidders Conference RSVP” as the subject line) or by phone to (858) 534-0577. RSVPs are requested no later than 5:00 p.m. on May 1, 2013. To stay informed of upcoming workshops, meetings, and other North Coast MPA monitoring planning activities, please email Erin Meyer (erin.meyer@calost.org) to join the North Coast listserv, and please visit the North Coast MPA Baseline Program page at http://oceanspaces.org/program/north-coast-mpa-baseline-program.

Please read the full RFP on the California Sea Grant Program website at: http://www.csgc.ucsd.edu/FUNDING/APPLYING/NorthCoastMPA2014-15.html

Questions related to proposal requirements should be directed to Sea Grant, DFW, or the Monitoring Enterprise (see Section VI on the web page above for guidance and contact information). Answers to frequently asked questions, additional details regarding the bidders conference, and any updates relating to this RFP will be available on the California Sea Grant website (http://www.csgc.ucsd.edu/FUNDING/APPLYING/NorthCoastMPA2014-15.html). Persons intending to submit proposals in response to this RFP should consult this website frequently for updates and additional information.

Applications are due July 15, 2013. We expect to award grants in the fall of 2013. Applications must be emailed (or postmarked) by the submission date. The full announcement is available here. The grant application form is available here.

The California Coastal Geoportal will be presented at several state agencies in mid-April. The California Technology Agency, with Ocean Protection Council, California Ocean Science Trust, and NOAA Coastal Services Center staff, will presentation a demonstration of the forthcoming California Coastal Geoportal. The goal of these visits is to gain feedback from state agency users about the initial features and functions of the Coastal Geoportal, and to learn about how the Coastal Geoportal can help them with their regular job duties.

The agency roadshow team will visit State Lands Commission on April 10, followed by the California Coastal Commission and Bay Conservation and Development Commission on April 18 & 19.

Click for SLR Guidance Document

On Wednesday March 15, 2013 OPC staff presented an update to the State of California Sea-Level Rise Guidance Document. The purpose of the SLR Guidance remains the same, to help state agencies incorporate future sea-level rise impacts into planning decisions, but has now been updated to include the best current science, as summarized in the final report from the National Academy of Sciences, Sea-Level Rise for the Coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington.

Specifically, this SLR Guidance provides information and recommendations to enhance consistency across agencies in their development of approaches to sea-level rise. Because of their differing mandates and decision-making processes, state agencies will interpret and use this document in a flexible manner, taking into consideration risk tolerances, timeframes, economic considerations, adaptive capacities, legal requirements and other relevant factors.  Although the estimates of future sea-level rise provided in this document are intended to enhance consistency across California state agencies, the document is not intended to prescribe that all state agencies use specific or identical estimates of sea-level rise as part of their assessments or decisions.

The underlying premise of the SLR Guidance is that sea-level rise potentially will cause many harmful economic, ecological, physical and social impacts and that incorporating sea-level rise into agency decisions can help mitigate some of these potential impacts.  For example, sea-level rise will threaten water supplies, coastal development, and infrastructure, but early integration of projected sea-level rise into project designs will lessen these potential impacts.

BACKGROUND

In October 2010, the Coastal and Ocean Working Group of the California Climate Action Team (CO-CAT) finalized the State of California Sea-Level Rise Interim Guidance Document  (Interim Guidance Document), which provided guidance for incorporating sea-level rise (SLR) projections into planning and decision making for projects in California. On March 11, 2011, the Ocean Protection Council adopted a Resolution stating that state agencies should follow the Interim Guidance Document as well as future guidance documents developed by the CO‐CAT. The Interim Guidance Document has now been updated: please see the attached State of California Sea-Level Rise Guidance Document.

The Interim Guidance Document was developed in response to Governor Schwarzenegger’s Executive Order S-13-08, issued on November 14, 2008, which directed state agencies to plan for sea-level rise and other climate change impacts. That executive order also requested the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to issue a report on sea-level rise to advise California on planning efforts. The Interim Guidance Document was considered interim because it was expected that the document would be updated when the NAS report was completed.

The final report from the National Academy of Sciences, Sea-Level Rise for the Coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington, was released in June 2012. The updated SLR Guidance incorporates new information presented in the NAS Report. The major additions to the document are summarized below.

• Updates the ranges of sea-level rise predicted for the years 2030, 2050 and 2100. The NAS Report sea-level rise projections are similar to the projections for 2030 and 2050 presented in the Interim Guidance Document (2010), but have a wider range. For 2100, the NAS projections are lower than those in the Interim Guidance Document (2010), due to differences in modeling approaches and consideration of regional impacts.

• Acknowledges different rates of sea-level rise for regions north and south of Cape Mendocino. The NAS Report highlights that tectonic activity north of Cape Mendocino occurs by the collision of tectonic plates in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, causing vertical land motion and lower rates of sea-level rise. South of Cape Mendocino, tectonic activity occurs along the San Andreas Fault Zone, where the plates are sliding past one another. Because of the different tectonic contexts of the two regions, separate sea-level rise ranges are presented for north and south of Cape Mendocino.

• Considers predicted tectonic activity and the significant risk posed to the region north of Cape Mendocino from a large earthquake (magnitude greater than 8) along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, as advised in the NAS Report. Although the purpose of the document is to provide guidance on SLR impacts from climate change, not tectonic hazards, it is important to communicate the role that tectonic activity can have on changing relative sea level.

• Strengthens language on impacts of storms and other extreme events. As before, planners and managers are directed to consider storms and other extreme events; however, there is greater emphasis in this version of the document towards consideration of their associated hazards. Per the findings in the NAS Rreport, the SLR Guidance stresses that most of the damage along the coast in the near term is expected to be caused by storms, in particular, the confluence of large waves, storm surges, and high astronomical tides during a strong El Niño.

Apart from the changes outlined in the four bullets, the policy recommendations in the SLR Guidance are the same as those developed in 2010.