Our grandsons won’t get to enjoy California’s golden beaches. Perhaps, one day they will remain immortalized on film and TV shows like Along with many low-lying islands around the world, rising seas brought about by climate change could claim the low lying Californian coast too. A new study has highlighted the danger that could become very real by the century’s end. It would also wipe out billions of dollars of real estate, roads, and tax revenues.
Phillip King, associate professor of economics at San Francisco State University says,” If beaches disappear, shrink and erode, we are going to have less tourism. We took the best available science, and it’s possible the (estimated) costs are still too low.”
Department of Boating and Waterways, university economists researched the possible scenario for two years. They projected the economic loses communities could have to face because of global warming. They looked at five stretches of ocean properties – like the San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, as well as the Southern California beach communities of Carpinteria, Malibu, Venice and Torrey Pines State Reserve near San Diego.
The study took all the forecasts that have been made, factoring in a sea level rise of anything between 1 and 2 meters by the year 2100. The models developed by them took into account properties, infrastructure, wildlife habitat and open space that could be flooded or eroded, and the value of those losses. Present day reports were used to calculate how costly it would be to protect or replace those coastal resources.
The study says that Venice Beach could be the hardest hit of the five shorelines studied. A 2-meter rise in sea level over the next 90 years could result in $96 million in identified losses. A 1-meter increase over the same period would trigger $31.6 million in losses there.
If you throw in erosion of inland areas, the United States could be looking at an environmental bill of $600 million to $1 billion by the century’s end.
The San Francisco State University researchers make no recommendations but said their findings could guide policymakers when they consider future shorefront development. That should include infrastructure safeguards to protect the coastline from the rising seas.
