San Francisco Bay and Outer Coast Sentinel Site Cooperative

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San Francisco Bay and Outer Coast Sentinel Site Cooperative

Overview

San Francisco Bay and its Outer Coast comprise the largest estuarine area on the west coast of the United States. Home to a bounty of natural areas such as Gulf of Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries and the San Francisco Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve as well as over 7 million people, the region serves as an ideal area for the variety of NOAA programs to help achieve the vision of the NOAA Sentinel Site Program.

The NOAA Sentinel Site Program provides a place-based, issue-drive approach to ask and answer questions of local, regional, and national significance that affect both NOAA Trust Resources and the surrounding communities, that will leverage existing assets, programs, and resources. The effort is led by NOAA’s Coastal Services Center, Gulf of Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, and two NOAA-state partnerships—San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission and San Francisco Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.

The Bay Area Sentinel Site Cooperative combines and enhances current NOAA and NOAA partner efforts on climate change projects and programs addressing sea level rise and storms, ranging from Bodega Bay to Ano Nuevo along the coast, and San Francisco Bay, such as:

• Our Coast-Our Future: Planning for Sea Level Rise and Storm Hazards Wwithin the Bay Area
• Bay Area Ecosystems Climate Change Consortium
• NOAA San Francisco Bay Coordination Group
• Adapting to Rising Tides
• California King Tides Initiative

NOAA and our partner programs are uniquely positioned and active in supporting and leveraging this effort, which will produce high visibility successes on climate change science, tools, adaptation, and outreach.

Goal: Improve resilience of coastal communities and natural areas to sea level rise and its impacts by providing:

• Tools to visualize potential sea level rise, inundation, flood frequency, and socioeconomic impacts
• Socioeconomic vulnerability analysis that can be used as a model for other regions
• Adaptation plan for a Bay Area community that is transferable to other communities in and around the Bay region, and for protected area coastal habitats

Current Sources of NOAA and partner data and information:

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