Sea Level Rise  and Nature Based Adaptation 

San Francisco Bay is the largest estuary on the west coast.  It includes unparalleled marshes and mudflats along the shoreline that provide food and shelter to fish and wildlife and account for 77% of California’s remaining perennial estuarine wetlands.  It is home to over 1,000 species of animals, including endemic, threatened, and endangered species.  It is a critical stopover for hundreds of thousands of birds on the Pacific Flyway and hosts more wintering shorebirds than any other estuary on the west coast outside of Alaska. The Bay supports over 130 species of fish, including salmon and other anadromous fish, which spend most of their lives in the ocean but return to fresh water to reproduce.  Harbor seals, gulls, sea bass, geese, thousands of other species of fish, plants, mammals, reptiles, and birds thrive in the San Francisco Bay estuary.  

As sea levels rise, urgent action is needed as flooding endangers the Bay's fragile ecology, drowning healthy marshes and mudflats while also threatening great economic harm to housing, industry and critical infrastructure