The California State Coastal Conservancy, in collaboration with funding partners, is managing a pilot project along San Rafael's bayfront using native oysters, eelgrass, and other materials to create living reefs with multiple objectives: restore and protect aquatic habitat while also improving the shoreline’s ability to cope with sea level rise and attendant wave energy.

The California Climate Change Adaptation Strategy recommends use of living shorelines as a strategy that could reduce the need for engineered hard shoreline protections in the growing effort to adapt our low-lying areas to rising waters.

The Conservancy project is conducted in two locations: along the Hayward shoreline and in San Rafael Bay. The San Rafael location is a wide, shallow mudflat between Point San Quentin to the south and Point San Pedro to the north. Herring often spawn along this shoreline and could also benefit from restored subtidal habitat.

Presenters will be Coastal Conservancy Project Manager Marilyn Latta or San Francisco State University Professor Katharyn Boyer, who work together on the project, now in its third year.

Using bank stabilization and habitat restoration to reinforce the shoreline and minimize coastal erosion while also creating aquatic habitat is not a new concept but is new to San Francisco Bay. The approach has been implemented earlier in Chesapeake Bay and along the Alabama-Mississippi coastline.

The results of this study should provide information about the benefits of biological reefs to improve aquatic habitat, while also protecting people and structures from sea level rise impacts.

Program series co-chairs are Priscilla Bull (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and Ann Thomas (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). Please contact us anytime with questions or comments.