Rising sea levels could take
economic toll on California beaches
A state-commissioned study by San Francisco State says
erosion and storm damage by the advancing ocean over the next century could cut
into tourism and tax revenue.
Homeowners
along Broad Beach in Malibu have been building huge sandbag walls reinforced
with truckloads of boulders to stem damage caused by rising seas and stormy
tides. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) |
By Tony Barboza, Los Angeles Times
September
14, 2011
As rising sea levels eat away at the California coastline
over the next century, the advancing ocean could cause hundreds of millions of
dollars in damage to beach communities as tourism and tax revenue is swept
away, according to a state-commissioned study released Tuesday.
As climate change warms and expands the ocean, increased storm damage and
erosion will narrow the state's beaches and diminish their appeal to both
tourists and wildlife, economists at San Francisco State predict.
"You need a certain amount of space for people to recreate, and, as
beaches erode, you lose beach size and you lose tourism," said study
author Phillip King, associate professor of economics at San Francisco State.
The
study, commissioned by the California Department of Boating and Waterways,
looked at five California beach communities, using sea-level-rise projections
to estimate economic losses from flooding and beach erosion.
Venice Beach, for instance, could lose up to $440 million in tourism and tax
revenue if the Pacific Ocean rises 55 inches by 2100, as scientists predict.
A drop-off in visitors to an eroded Zuma Beach and
Broad Beach in Malibu would cost as much as $500 million in tourism spending
and tax revenue, the study found.
The effect of more destructive storm surges and higher tides would reverberate
through the local and state economy, researchers said.
The ocean's expansion would be particularly hard on Southern California, where
the heavily used shoreline generates big bucks to businesses, which pass some
of it on to local governments in taxes.
Elsewhere in the state, homes and roads would be particularly vulnerable.
At San Francisco's Ocean Beach, the increasingly erosive power of storm surges
could cause $540 million in damage to land, buildings and infrastructure by
century's end, researchers project.
The study also examined beaches at Torrey Pines in San Diego County and Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County.
The research underscores the pressing need for beach communities to adapt to
the rising waters by building sea walls, replenishing beach sand or pushing
homes and structures away from the shoreline, King said.
"Sea-level rise is here," King said, "and we need to start
planning for it."
The ocean has risen about 8 inches in the last century and is expected to swell
at an increasing rate with global warming.
But California may have been spared the full strength of the ocean's advance
for the last few decades, recent research suggests.
Earlier this year, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego found that
while sea levels rose around the globe, they were on hiatus on the U.S. West
Coast for the last three decades because of a pattern of cold surface waters.
But that trend may be reversing, the study found, and an era of accelerated
sea-level rise could begin this decade.