Initial Coastal Storm Modeling Results Workshop

October 21, 2015 | Annenberg Community Beach House, Santa Monica

USC Sea Grant and the City of Santa Monica hosted a workshop on October 21, 2015 to share the initial results from the Coastal Storm Modeling System (CoSMoS) for Southern California.  CoSMoS is a modeling system that projects coastal flooding and erosion due to both sea level rise and storms driven by climate change. It provides the science needed to help communities understand and evaluate how sea level rise could be expected to impact the region.

CoSMoS was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Deltares. Dr. Patrick Barnard, project leader at USGS, presented the initial model results for a severe, 100-year storm combined with four scenarios of sea level rise in the Los Angeles region.  The release of these initial results marks a much anticipated milestone in a multi-year process to bring this state-of-the-art modeling to the region.

“CoSMoS provides the best available science to support planning and policy decisions,” said Alyssa Newton Mann, Regional Research and Planning Specialist at USC Sea Grant. “Results will also help emergency managers identify communities to target for outreach about potential risks.”

This information will allow communities to identify both current and projected vulnerabilities to a suite of coastal storms, in combination with sea level rise. For example, results will help communities identify geographic locations, e.g. neighborhoods, beaches and cliffs, and assets, e.g. water treatment plants, utilities, and roads, which are vulnerable to flooding and erosion.

Initial results for the rest of Southern California will be available November 15, 2015 and may be downloaded here. The full suite of CoSMoS results and data covering 40 sea level rise and storm scenarios for Southern California will be officially released by USGS in fall 2016. Results will be publicly accessible and free of charge through the mapping tool at Our Coast, Our Future (www.prbo.org/ocof). 

Additional workshop presentations were given by Dr. Lesley Ewing and Carey Batha from the CA Coastal Commission who discussed the Commission’s new policy guidance on sea level rise and several options for adaptation strategies. Dr. Bob Battalio from ESA gave an update on the status of shoreline change modeling for AdaptLA.

The workshop also included discussions of ongoing efforts in several local communities to plan for and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

CoSMoS is supported by federal and state agencies. Funding for CoSMoS comes from a combination of internal USGS resources, the CA Coastal Conservancy, CA Department Fish & Wildlife, Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, and City of Imperial Beach.