California
Beach erosion will make Southern California coastal living five times more expensive by 2050, study predicts
Rising sea levels and urban development are accelerating coastal erosion at an alarming rate in Southern California with significant ripple effects on the region’s economy, a USC study reveals.
The study, published in Communications Earth & Environment, predicts that Southern California’s coastal living costs will surge fivefold by 2050 as a direct result of beach erosion. This erosion will require more frequent and costly beach nourishment projects to maintain the state’s treasured shorelines, consequently driving up the cost of living along the coast.
“Our study presents compelling evidence of the rapid deterioration of Southern California’s coastal landscapes,” said Essam Heggy, a geoscientist in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering/Electrophysics at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the study’s corresponding author.
“The challenges facing Southern California mirror a growing threat shared by coastal communities worldwide. The environmental and economic implications of coastal erosion reach far beyond California’s shores and demand interdisciplinary, global solutions,” he said.
Coastal erosion: Cost of living sure to surge as sandy beaches disappear
To predict future changes along California’s sandy coastlines, the researchers focused on the Gulf of Santa Catalina, which stretches over 150 miles from the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County to the northern tip of Baja California in Mexico.
They used a combination of historical and recent satellite images as well as advanced algorithms to analyze coastline movement and predict future erosion based on different trends and environmental factors.
The study predicts a tripling of erosion rates by 2050, increasing from an average of 1.45 meters per year to 3.18 meters by 2100. Consequently, the annual sand requirement for beach nourishment could triple by 2050, with costs rising fivefold due to the global increase in sand prices. This will exacerbate economic and logistical pressures on coastal communities.
Beach nourishment is adding sand to an eroded beach to rebuild it and create a wider barrier against waves and storms.
“Our investigation suggests that coastal problems start inland due to the rapid growth of cities along the coast, which compromise inland sediment replenishment of sandy beaches,” said Heggy, whose research focuses on understanding water evolution in Earth’s arid environments.
“As our beaches shrink, the cost of maintaining them will rise. Finding innovative solutions is key to securing a sustainable future for our shores and local economies,” he said.
Coastal erosion in California: A case study for a global problem
Coastal cities in Southern California and those in North Africa bordering the Mediterranean Sea face a common challenge: a semi-arid climate year-round coupled with the growing threats of rising sea levels and eroding shorelines.
A significant portion of Earth’s landmass, roughly 41%, falls under arid or semi-arid classifications, and these areas support over a third of the global population.
To understand this global challenge, the researchers focused on two specific locations: Corona del Mar in Orange County, Calif.—an example of the typical Southern California coastline—and Hammamet North Beach in Tunisia. Both are densely populated and share similar climates, prone to increasing droughts, flash floods and unpredictable rainfall patterns. These characteristics mirror the challenges faced by countless coastal communities worldwide.
The findings showed that the average rate of shoreline retreat in these areas varies. In Southern California, beaches are receding between 0.75 and 1.24 meters per year. In Hammamet North Beach, the retreat rate ranges from 0.21 to about 4.49 meters annually.
“While beach nourishment can temporarily combat erosion, however, it presents significant challenges for developing countries,” said Oula Amrouni, a sedimentologist at the National Institute of Marine Sciences and Technologies at the University of Carthage, Tunis, Tunisia, and one of the study’s co-authors.
“The high cost of acquiring the right sand, with the specific grain size, quality and composition, and the technical complexity of extracting and laying it are major hurdles. Additionally, worsening erosion in previously stable areas compels more frequent nourishment projects, straining already limited budgets and leading to unplanned expenditures for many communities.”
More information:
Oula Amrouni et al, Shoreline retreat and beach nourishment are projected to increase in Southern California, Communications Earth & Environment (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-024-01388-6
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University of Southern California
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Beach erosion will make Southern California coastal living five times more expensive by 2050, study predicts (2024, May 22)
retrieved 22 May 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-05-beach-erosion-southern-california-coastal.html
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California
4-year-old California boy found safe after spending night alone in wilderness
FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. — A 4-year-old boy from Torrance, California was found safe Friday morning after he spent the night in the wilderness in Fresno County, California.
Christian Ramirez went missing Thursday morning from a campground.
Search teams found him Friday about a quarter-mile from where he disappeared.
SEE ALSO: 2 capital murder suspects were arrested by Border Patrol and released before Texas girl’s death: ICE
Ramirez was hungry and tired, but otherwise found in good condition. He was reunited with his parents.
It’s still unclear exactly how he got separated from his family, but authorities said it appeared he wandered off while they were at the campground.
KFSN-TV contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2024 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.
California
An Interview with Retired California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye
Tani Cantil-Sakauye was the 28th Chief Justice of the State of California. The first Asian Filipina American and the second woman to serve as the state’s chief justice, she is the current president and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California. Before sitting on the panel for “What Makes a Great California Idea?,” part of the inaugural CalMatters Ideas Festival, Cantil-Sakauye joined us in the green room to talk about humor, mediation, and the “Sackamenna Kid.”
Q:
In this event description, we referred to California as Tomorrowland. If you could create any land, what land would it be?
A:
I would call it Opportunityland, and I would like it to be a place where people could try out new things, find who they really are, find their passions and their talents instead of finding out too late, or never finding out at all, or being wistful that they had tried something else.
Q:
Can you give us an example?
A:
I was a lawyer at a time when there weren’t a lot of female prosecutors in the courtroom. And I was standing by the elevator once, and the lawyer said to me, Cantil, it looks like you’re gaining weight. And I said to him: you should talk, you have seven hairs on your head and four are loose. And so, we are friends to this day, but I always felt that insulting attorneys going into trial about their hair sort of took them off balance.
Q:
What have you learned as a mediator about navigating conflict?
A:
It takes a while, and it requires multiple steps along the way and then an assessment of how the steps are going with talking to them. So for me, and for contemporary mediation, we meet in separate rooms. It’s about getting to know not necessarily the lawyer, but the client of the lawyer. I think it’s a lot of listening and empathizing, and truly understanding and standing in the shoes of who they are, their experiences, and how it’s feeling to them now.
Q:
Was there a journalist that you particularly admired growing up?
A:
I’m old enough to remember and appreciate Herb Caen, who wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle. He was from Sacramento, but he was basically, professionally, in the Bay Area. And he was called the “Sackamenna Kid.” He wrote about current events and insights into politics with humor, and he had his own column. While I was aware of all the other news, Herb Caen was the piece of paper that I would always grab and read. I didn’t understand most of it, frankly, because it was all political insider stuff. But he did it in such a humorous way that was pithy and funny but meaningful; so that was what I remember. When I was growing up, there were like three TV stations. There wasn’t cable. There wasn’t streaming. There wasn’t internet. There wasn’t anything. There was like one or two newspapers, and that was it. So you know, you made your joy wherever you could find it.
California
Want to move to Nevada? California-based class teaches how
LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Hundreds of thousands of people have moved to Nevada since the pandemic, and a class helps Northern California residents make informed decisions before the leap to relocate to the Silver State.
The class is titled “Exit Strategies for Leaving the Bay Area,” offered by Campbell Adult & Community Education in San Jose. Realtor Punam Navalgund created the class in 2019 and tells FOX5 that the concept was born out of necessity by a demand from clients.
“It was me hearing a need from home sellers to make more informed decisions about making their move,” Navalgund said. “There are people from all walks of life, people looking to retire, people who want to raise a family somewhere else where the cost of living isn’t as high as it is here in the Bay Area. It’s people who have a lot of equity in their homes, who aren’t really sure how much they’re going to have left at the end of the transaction,” she said.
Navalgund said students have moved to states such as Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Texas, Florida and Georgia, but Nevada remains a popular relocation destination.
“We help people build a support team here locally, as well as in their destination. So whether that’s looking for lawyers, looking for real estate agents, looking for tax professionals, financial planners, I really want people to feel secure about making that decision,” she said.
According to data from the Lee School of Business at UNLV, 355,088 people moved from California from 2020 to 2023 and 148,939 people were from California. Data came from licenses surrendered to the Nevada DMV.
Copyright 2024 KVVU. All rights reserved.
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