Short- and Long-Term Risks of Back Beach Development along the California Coast

Griggs, G.B. and Battalio, B., 2025. Short- and long-term risks of back beach development along the California coast. Journal of Coastal Research, 41(1), 146–179. Charlotte (North Carolina), ISSN 0749-0208. California's beaches in their natural, predevelopment state, like all beaches, would narrow under the impact of winter storm waves and then widen again the following spring and summer. Between the mid-1940s and 1978, the coast of California experienced a cooler and generally calmer Pacific Decadal Oscillation cycle with generally milder and less frequent El Niño events and little coastal storm damage. This was also the period following World War II when California's population grew rapidly, and the landward portions of a number of California's once wide beaches were developed with private homes, commercial establishments, and also public infrastructure during times when these beaches were wide and inviting. In recent decades, however, this development has been repeatedly impacted by short-term extreme events, typically very large waves arriving simultaneously with extreme high tides, often during major El Niño events, which further elevate water levels. Reduction of sand supplies and fluctuations and changes in the wave climate have also been factors in these impacts to shoreline development. Over the long term, rising sea levels will increasingly add to the shoreline challenges facing both private development and public infrastructure. Realistic solutions or responses are limited, however, and include armor and repeated beach nourishment. These are expensive and will only be effective over a few decades at best. Climate change is real, it's now, and it's everywhere. While homeowners understandably are not interested in managed retreat, if not managed, then it will be unmanaged. Each of the state's oceanfront communities where back beach development is being threatened or has been damaged or destroyed needs to identify their most vulnerable assets or development and, using California's most up-to-date assessment of future sea levels and short-term extreme events, plan for the future when maintaining or protecting these areas will no longer be feasible.