Keep San Francisco Bay Alive

The Bay Conservation & Development Commission (BCDC) has set standards and criteria that will shape sea level rise response in every SF Bay community for decades to come. Help make sure they are implemented correctly!

Add Your Name: Help Protect San Francisco Bay!

Why This Matters

With potential for over six feet of sea level rise by 2100, rising waters put our shoreline communities and the Bay’s vibrant but fragile ecology at risk. Adaptation will require a dramatic re-envisioning of the region’s relationship to the Bay.

Under a new state law, SB272, every shoreline jurisdiction in the Bay must develop a sea level rise adaptation plan and get approval from BCDC. On December 5, 2024, BCDC approved their Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan (RSAP) guidelines which set the minimum standards and criteria for approval of those plans. The RSAP represents an unprecedented effort for a coordinated regional approach to sea level rise that both saves the ecological health of the Bay and protects our most vulnerable communities.

Now, Bay regional communities have until 2034 to submit local sea level rise plans to BCDC for approval. However, our resilience cannot wait until then, urgent implementation is crucial. The sooner we adapt to sea level rise, the more opportunities we have to safeguard nature and our communities. How and when we choose to adapt matters.

Our baylands support the Bay Area’s globally important biodiversity. We depend on these living habitats to protect our communities by cleaning our air & water, storing carbon, moderating temperatures, and mitigating flood and storm surge impacts.

Our baylands are under threat: tidal marshes, for example, can drown just like our communities. But our ecosystems can adapt – if given the proper space and resources to allow for them to trap sediment and grow higher as the waters rise or to migrate upland. With strategic, forward-thinking adaptation, we can help nature help us.

Sierra Club supports prioritizing nature-based adaptation strategies and environmental justice for the Bay Area as we adapt to the challenges of sea level rise. 

We all depend on a living Bay. Can the Bay depend on you?

The Bay Alive Campaign is funded through a bequest received by the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter from the Rohloff Estate.