OUR MISSION: To provide our customers with high-quality, efficient and reliable water, power and sewer services in a manner that values environmental and community interests and sustains the resources entrusted to our care.
525 Golden Gate Avenue, 13th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
T 415.554.3155
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TTY 415.554.3488
October 6, 2023
To: Commissioner Tim Paulson, President
Commissioner Anthony Rivera, Vice President
Commissioner Newsha Ajami
Commissioner Sophie Maxwell
Commissioner Kate Stacey
Through: Dennis J. Herrera General Manager
From: David Behar, Climate Program Director
Re: Multi-Enterprise Climate Program Update
The following presents an update on activities underway at the SFPUC related to climate change mitigation, adaptation, and collaboration, though it’s worth noting that a number of projects provide benefits in more than one category. This memorandum provides a high-level overview of key projects underway. It was developed by staff working on the initiatives described below. All these programs are led by teams at the SFPUC, often working across business units. Special thanks for their contributions to this memorandum go to Alexandra Gunnell, Amod Dhakal, Anna Roche, Catherine Spaulding, Dan Fuchs, Edward Kwong, Ellen Levin, Ellen Natesan, Eric Kwak, Julianne Lea, Mallory Albright, Nikolai Sklaroff, Ryan Batjiaka, Sarah Minick, and Will Logsdon.
Mitigation
(reducing greenhouse gas emissions to lessen global warming)
Clean Power SF
CleanPowerSF is a not-for-profit program that launched in 2016 with a mission to provide San Francisco customers with the choice of having their electricity supplied from clean, renewable sources at a competitive price. CleanPowerSF offers three options for cleaner energy: Green (at least 50% California renewable portfolio standards (RPS)-eligible renewable energy and low carbon energy supply), a SuperGreen (100% California RPS-eligible renewable energy and zero carbon energy supply), and SuperGreen Saver (100% California RPS-eligible renewable energy and low carbon energy supply at a 20%+ discounted rate for eligible low-income customers). CleanPowerSF is now serving over 380,000 San Francisco customers. In 2021, CleanPowerSF committed to providing 100% renewable electricity to all customers by 2025.
Power Enterprise Customer Programs
The Power Enterprise provides numerous customer programs to both Hetch Hetchy Power and CleanPowerSF customers. Through rebates, specially designed rates and services, and other incentive structures, these programs help customers use energy as efficiently as possible, save money, and participate in San Francisco’s clean energy future. Customer programs are essential to achieving Power’s Business Plan objective to provide high-quality service to current customers and grow our customer base. Customer programs also promote local investment, equity in clean energy, and stewardship and conservation of our Hetch Hetchy and other resources.
Our customer programs strive to meet our customers’ needs, the business needs of the Enterprise, and environmental justice and City priorities like support for affordable housing and Covid-19 recovery (affordability). Power uses the following guiding principles when designing and implementing programs: Advancing building efficiency and decarbonization; Equity in access to clean energy services; Helping customers manage their energy bills; Improving utilization of electricity generating assets and reducing energy supply costs for ratepayers; Local investment in clean energy technologies; and Stewardship and conservation of Hetch Hetchy resources.
One key program Power runs is GoSolarSF. Launched in 2008, GoSolarSF provides monetary incentives to help CleanPowerSF and Hetch Hetchy residential and business electric customers install photovoltaic (PV) solar panels. With a focused emphasis on supporting low-income and non- profit customers, GoSolarSF reduces participants’ electricity bills and the City’s carbon footprint.
Since the program’s inception, the SFPUC has supported the development of 23 MW of solar sited on San Franciscan’s rooftops and provided more than $30 million in solar rebates to help develop the local market for solar power. The SFPUC recently launched an incentive program to help low- income GoSolarSF participants replace their inverters and thus increase the longevity of their solar systems.
Power has also recently began incentivizing electric vehicle charging through the EV Charge SF Program, which provides rebates and technical assistance to customers considering installing electric vehicle charging in new construction. Additionally, new programs incentivizing heat pump water heaters as well as demand response are continuing to see active participation among various customer groups. Power is continuing to develop more programs in support of the City’s climate and equity goals and plans to launch new incentives to encourage transportation and building electrification in the coming years.
Distributed Energy Resources (DER) Projects
SFPUC Power has developed 8.6 megawatts (MW) of onsite solar power capacity on City-owned buildings and facilities. In FY2023, the SFPUC completed two Solar PV installations: one at Alameda Creek Watershed Center and the other at Marina Middle School. These installations provide a combined 125 kilowatts of new solar generating capacity to the SFPUC’s energy portfolio.
These projects provide power directly to their host buildings as part of the Hetch Hetchy Power program’s electricity service. In addition to managing solar installations, the SFPUC works with Hetch Hetchy Power customers to increase their energy efficiency with lighting and heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) upgrade projects. As the City strives to decarbonize all buildings, the SFPUC’s Distributed Energy Resources (DER) team has also been developing fuel switching demonstration retrofits and providing engineering design and contracting services to replace natural gas heating systems with all-electric heat pump and/or variable refrigerant flow (VRF) systems.
Hetch Hetchy Power
For 100 years, the SFPUC has been generating greenhouse gas-free hydropower as the City’s full- service, publicly owned electric utility. This clean Hetch Hetchy Power energizes municipal services such as MUNI, public schools, and the San Francisco International Airport, and an increasing
number of residents and businesses like The Shipyard housing development and tenants of Salesforce Transit Center. Hetch Hetchy Power currently provides 20% of San Francisco’s total electricity with clean power.
Watershed lands carbon sequestration evaluation
The Alameda Watershed Carbon Assessment was completed in March of 2023. https://www.sfei.org/projects/alameda-watershed-carbon
This assessment offers scientific guidance on the watershed’s current and potential performance as a natural climate solution. This assessment was framed by two main objectives: to quantify current carbon stocks in the Alameda Watershed, and to evaluate opportunities to enhance carbon sequestration in its vegetation and soils. A central tenet of this analysis is that the value of any management action depends on the ecological context; In order to be considered ecologically appropriate, carbon management activities need to provide durable, long-term greenhouse gas benefits, support multiple ecosystem functions, and avoid or minimize ecological tradeoffs. The Alameda Watershed Carbon Assessment’s findings suggest that San Francisco’s plan to use nature-based solutions to sequester carbon to achieve net zero emissions, as outlined in San Francisco’s 2021 Climate Action Plan, will not be able to rely solely on lands owned by San Francisco unless carbon emissions are reduced significantly more than currently planned.
Biosolids carbon sequestration
SFPUC produces approximately 55,000 tons of biosolids per year. In part to comply with SB 1383, which limits the use of biosolids for alternative daily cover in landfills because of resultant methane emissions in the anaerobic landfill environment, and also in recognition of the value of biosolids as a resource that can improve soil fertility and sequester carbon, all SFPUC biosolids are now used as a fertilizer. The biosolids are land applied and also converted into liquid fertilizer, used on Northern California ranches to improve soil health and combat climate change by storing carbon.
Utilization of biogas as a renewable energy source
Biogas is natural gas produced during the treatment of wastewater solids. This carbon-based energy was recently plant material that was consumed by humans as food. It differs from non- renewable fossil sources of carbon in that this carbon was recently pulled out of the atmosphere by plants. As humans are constantly consuming carbon and excreting it, biogas is a renewable source of gas and can be used to power vehicles, generate heat and electricity or injected into the gas grid.
SFPUC is pursuing a project to upgrade the biogas produced at its Southeast Treatment Plant to natural gas quality and inject into the City’s gas grid. This will displace fossil fuel derived natural gas with renewable natural gas, also called biomethane. Additionally, the Ocean Side Treatment Plant is upgrading its biogas handling facility and installing three new 600 kW generators that will convert biogas into electricity and heat that will be used to offset energy demands at the treatment plant.
Adaptation
(maintaining resilience in the face of climate change)
Long Term Vulnerability Assessment (LTVA) for the Water Enterprise The Water Enterprise assessed long-term vulnerabilities of the Regional Water System to meet water supply through the year 2070 considering a variety of long-term uncertainties. The uncertainties included are climate change, demand, regulations, finance and infrastructure failures.
This assessment was done in collaboration with the Water Research Foundation (WRF). The report was released in December 2021 by WRF and the SFPUC. The SFPUC held a workshop in October 2021 detailing the methods of investigation and findings of the LTVA. The Water Enterprise
is continuing to work on integrating LTVA tools and methods for evaluating alternative water supply projects into its water supply planning analyses.
Hetch Hetchy Water and Power Forecasting Advancements
The Hetch Hetchy Water and Power (HHWP) Division of Water Enterprise has made considerable additions and improvements to existing forecast techniques and tools. Whereas traditional reservoir inflow forecasts produced via statistical methods demonstrate considerable predictive power, the historic relationships on which their equations are grounded are subject to deterioration in the face of a changing climate. Physics-based and process-based models are better able to account for climate change impacts since they simulate physical processes and do not rely solely on historic patterns. HHWP is making use of the process-based, USGS developed Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) hydrologic model to improve forecast performance and flexibility. PRMS can utilize various weather model products, and it can incorporate observed data from remote sensing products like the Airborne Snow Observatory and in-situ snow course measurements from the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program. The HHWP division has formed relationships with partnering agencies including California Department of Water Resources, California-Nevada River Forecast Center, and Scripps Center for Western Water and Weather Extremes, all of whom provide invaluable insight and collaboration for furthering the capacity of predictive tools to inform reservoir operations with increasing lead time and skill.
Advanced Quantitative Precipitation Information (AQPI) System The SF Bay Advanced Quantitative Precipitation Information (AQPI) System was funded in 2016 by a grant from the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and awarded to Sonoma Water and participating Bay Area agencies. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is building the AQPI System and delivering the AQPI end-product to these agencies. The goals of the AQPI system when completed will provide 4 X-Band and one C-Band radars and information systems that will increase the accuracy of weather forecasting and response systems throughout the Bay Area. The SFPUC is constructing one X-band radar in the Peninsula watershed. The installation of the radar is expected to be completed in 2023 and the system is expected to be operational in 2024. With these radars in place, improved forecasting will assist water managers, reservoir operators, wastewater plant managers, flood and emergency responders to respond to extreme water events in a timely fashion. SF Bay AQPI has formed a Local Partner Agency Committee (LPAC) to develop the framework for regional collaboration and agreement.
In addition to completing the construction of the X-band radar and putting it in operation, the SFPUC is also preparing to be able to use the data generated by the radar system. The AQPI radar network will produce detailed precipitation forecasts over the San Francisco Bay Area. The radar data the SFPUC receives will be imported and merged with other existing sources of weather and hydrologic data for data processing. The SFPUC Water Enterprise is working on developing a modeling platform compatible with the existing hydrologic database and models that can ingest the new weather forecast data and produce inflow forecasts at reservoirs. This will allow development of a modern inflow forecasting and warning system that will integrate large data sets, have specialized modules to process the data, and open interfaces to allow easy integration of existing modelling capacities.
Sea Level Rise and Flooding Working Group (City-wide)
SFPUC staff participate in the City’s Sea Level Rise Working Group which in 2020 added flooding to the list of climate change related issues that require City-wide coordination. The group meets on a bi-monthly basis and continues to track sea level rise related updates and how they may apply to San Francisco.
Waterfront Resilience Program, including Equity Working Group The Port’s Waterfront Resilience Program includes coordinated projects to ensure a resilient waterfront in the face of seismic and climate change related hazards. In 2023, SFPUC staff participated in the Waterfront Resilience Program at a number of levels. This includes participation in the equity working group to help envision a waterfront that is more resilient and equitable. In addition, the Wastewater Enterprise participated in the regular “champions meetings” throughout the year as well as ClimateSF, reporting major issues and decision-points up through SFPUC management and engaging Water & Power when relevant. In the coming year, the team will collaborate with all participating city departments toward the Tentatively Selected Plan, a requirement toward obtaining a federal cost share for coastal protection in San Francisco.
ClimateSF (Formerly known as Climate Resilience Program) Climate SF, formalized in February 2020, is a comprehensive multiagency effort to coordinate and oversee existing and future climate resilience projects. The Climate Resilience Team, comprised of City departments, including the SFPUC, is helping define a desired and achievable climate resilient future for the City; maintain a road map of the City’s relevant near- and long-term policies, plans, and projects to achieve that future; and guide associated funding strategies, for example, green bonds. This collaborative integration will enhance innovation, consistency and efficiency across scales, coordination with other important City efforts, and community co-benefits. ClimateSF is being led and coordinated from the Office of Resilience and Capital Planning. This group will be able to deliver consistent messages about how the City is addressing climate impacts, and other shared products such as financing, grant opportunities, legislative, and governance strategies, common communications materials, and a citywide framework for addressing climate resilience.
Climate resilience involves both climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as how we capitalize on the synergies between the two.
Ocean Beach Climate Change Adaptation Project
Starting in the late 1990’s the coastal area south of Sloat Boulevard, in front of the Oceanside Treatment Plant (Plant), began experiencing climate-induced erosion. The on-going erosion is threatening the most seaward component of the Plant’s infrastructure – the Lake Merced Tunnel, a fourteen-foot diameter wastewater conveyance and storage facility located under the Great Highway south of Sloat Boulevard.
In support of a comprehensive solution to the erosion problem, the SFPUC and several other CCSF agencies actively participated in the development of the 2012 Ocean Beach Master Plan (OBMP).
The OBMP was an interagency effort to develop a sustainable long-term vision for Ocean Beach.
The OBMP addresses public access, environmental protection, and infrastructure needs in the context of climate-induced erosion. The OBMP developed six key recommendations that are organized by geographical reaches along Ocean Beach and are designed to be implemented incrementally over a period of decades. The Ocean Beach Climate Change Adaptation Project (Project) is a CCSF project, being led by the SFPUC and addresses two of the six key actions:
1) Removal of the Great Highway between Sloat and Skyline Boulevard, and 2) The introduction of a multipurpose coastal protection/restoration/access system
To implement these two OBMP recommendations, the SFPUC established the Project which includes three phases: 1) Short-term Improvements, 2) Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) Beach Nourishment, and 3) Long-term Improvements. While the Long-term Improvements phase is being developed, the Short-term Improvements and ACOE Beach Nourishment phases provide coastal erosion mitigation and protection of critical wastewater treatment infrastructure at Ocean Beach south of Sloat Boulevard to Skyline Boulevard within CCSF.
The Project is one of the first large, cross-agency infrastructure projects being built in San Francisco to address the long-term physical changes needed to combat climate induced sea level rise at Ocean Beach. Recent milestones include completion of 95% design, certification of the Final Environmental Impact Report, and continuing coordination on securing a Coastal Development Permit for the project. The Project is expected to go to construction in late 2024.
Extreme Precipitation Study
Coming out of the Sea Level Rise Action Plan, this study formally began in late 2018. The Wastewater Enterprise partnered with the Port, Airport, Office of Resilience, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories (LBNL) and Pathways Climate Institute to perform an extreme precipitation study. The goal is to understand how future extreme storm intensities may change because of climate change.
The modeling effort by LBNL was completed in 2021. Upon completion, LBNL developed a scientific publication that was published in early 2022. The study (Patricola, C.M., et al. Future changes in extreme precipitation over the San Francisco Bay Area: Dependence on atmospheric river and extratropical cyclone events. Weather and Climate Extremes https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2022.100440) found the effect of climate change on future extreme storms will be significant, leading to more powerful storms unleashing substantially more water.
Among its findings were that storm-total precipitation associated with the most common type of storm in the Bay Area may increase by up to 26% to 37% by the end of this century. Since the publication of the LBNL modeling, our climate consultant team, Pathways, further refined this data and its applicability to our city and its infrastructure. The team finalized their analysis in mid-2023 which characterizes what the city may expect in the future. The results illustrate how San Francisco must think holistically about how to manage increased rainfall in combination with sea level rise, drought, and other climate induced event. The reports can be found here at this link:
https://sfpuc.org/search?search=extreme+precipitation.
CBI Certified and Green Bonds
Since 2015, the SFPUC has issued more than $4.4 billion in CBI Certified and self-certified green bonds to finance Water, Wastewater, and Power capital projects that advance climate change mitigation or adaptation, making the SFPUC one of the largest municipal issuers of green labeled bonds in the United States, according to S&P Global Ratings. The SFPUC was an early adopter of Green Bonds and has issued more Green Bonds in calendar year 2023 than ever before. Green bonds are similar in all respects to the PUC’s other bonds except the proceeds must be earmarked for projects that specifically provide environmental benefits. All but $106M of the SFPUC’s green bonds have been certified under criteria developed by the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI), a non- profit organization established to promote the issuance of green bonds. In 2017, the SFPUC was recognized at CBI’s Annual Conference for issuing the world’s first Water Infrastructure Bond certified under the Climate Bonds Standard, and the SFPUC was awarded Environmental Finance's US Municipal Green Bond of the Year award in 2019 and 2021. The CBI certification is regarded as the platinum standard for certification as it is fully aligned with the Green Bond Principles developed by the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) and is consistent with achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. The CBI certification also requires ongoing reporting to maintain the certification of the bonds including a post-issuance report by a CBI approved verifier. In 2020, the SFPUC became the first US municipal agency to list a green bond on the London Stock Exchange. Green bonds have enabled the SFPUC to expand its investor base to include green and impact investors. Most importantly, they have allowed the SFPUC to communicate core values to the municipal bonds investor market. In April of 2023, the SFPUC issued $487M in CBI certified green bonds for SSIP projects in the Wastewater Enterprise. In August of 2023, the SFPUC issued $696M in CBI certified green bonds for the purposes of refunding previous bonds that funded WSIP projects in the Water Enterprise. The SFPUC is currently planning to update its Green Bond Program to incorporate external certification across all three enterprises.
Climate Resilience Programmatic WIFIA Wastewater Loan
In 2023. the Capital Finance and Loans and Grants divisions in Finance concluded a multi-year application and negotiation process with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish a programmatic loan program for six wastewater climate resilience projects. This programmatic Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) Loan Agreement was sized for $791 million of future loans and the first loan under the program was signed for a $369 million Loan. The advantage of this program is that the finance team was able to set the rate for the loan in April based on U.S. Treasury rates, even though the loans proceeds may not be drawn upon for several years. Further loans under the remaining capacity will be locked in in the future.
Climate Aligned Capital Planning
SFPUC is considering the climate-smart capital improvement planning methodology developed by the University of Washington and CalPoly (CA Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo). Dr.
Jan Whittington (University of Washington) has a model that integrates lifecycle cost, decarbonization, and resilience into typical capital improvement programming processes, which has been field tested over 10 years in international settings with the World Bank and other global organizations. The broad areas under consideration include 1) generating spatial models forecasting the magnitude of climate-exacerbated hazards (e.g., urban heat, flooding, sea level rise, and landslides/liquefaction) at resolutions and timescales adequate to evaluate capital investments over their lifespan; 2) evaluate the possibility of applying the climate-smart CIP model to ongoing SFPUC projects; and 3) taking initial steps toward establishing a method of measuring social equity and/or vulnerability in the CIP. The SFPUC is considering the methodology’s ability to generate outputs that would enhance the SFPUC’s green bond and ESG related reporting as well as assist capital planning decision making.
Green Infrastructure
Green infrastructure projects divert stormwater from the sewer system while delivering multiple additional benefits to San Franciscans, including increased ecological function and urban habitat, increased bike and pedestrian safety, increased flood resilience, and improved public realm. The most commonly used green infrastructure technologies include rain gardens, permeable pavement, and rainwater harvesting systems. In 2008, the first grants for green infrastructure were developed.
In 2010, the Stormwater Management Ordinance (SMO) was enacted. In 2012, the first green infrastructure capital projects began. These remain the three primary “buckets” of the Green Infrastructure program and each one has grown over time. In February of 2019 SFPUC launched a large Green Infrastructure Grant Program, aimed at transforming large impervious parcels into multi-benefit spaces that manage stormwater and improve San Francisco’s urban spaces. We have granted a total of $20.95 million in the first 4 years. Our long-standing Urban Watershed Stewardship Grant program has continued to lift up great stormwater management ideas from community members and their non-profit partners; we’ve granted over $2 million. In the regulatory space, the Stormwater Management Ordinance has continued to be an effective catalyst for integrating green infrastructure into our city – over 800 individual green infrastructure facilities have been implemented across over 540 projects subject to the SMO. And in the capital plan, green infrastructure has been integrated to help achieve both stormwater management and flood resilience goals and the agency has committed over $90 million over the next ten years to manage stormwater.
The current focus of the team is to scale up the implementation of green infrastructure through each of the above programs as well as City agency partnerships with the goal of managing 1 billion gallons of stormwater each year with green infrastructure by 2050, or 10% of all rain that falls on San Francisco each year.
The Wastewater Enterprise has increased our emphasis on flood resilience using programmatic strategies. For example, working with the Department of Building Inspection, the Planning Department, and the City Administrator’s Office, the SFPUC is leading an effort to incorporate
requirements for new construction to build the finished floor above the elevation of the 100 year storm. This would harness the development cycle to ensure that the city becomes more and more flood resilient over time. While this is a standard requirement in FEMA flood zones, the SFPUC is going above and beyond by seeking this level of flood resilience in areas outside of the FEMA map that experience stormwater driven flooding.
WWE is also in the process of updating our Floodwater Grant Program to increase participation.
The WWE has also begun to incorporate nature-based solutions and watershed planning into the field of flood resilience, expanding outside of the traditional space of water quality protection and peak flow and management of smaller storms.
Collaboration
Water Utility Climate Alliance (WUCA)
In February 2007, recognizing that climate change represented a growing threat to water utilities, the SFPUC hosted the first national Water Utility Climate Change Summit. The Summit brought together over 200 utility, federal, state, NGO, and other interested parties and out of it WUCA was launched (www.wucaonline.org). WUCA now consists of 12 water utilities serving over 50 million Americans and shares information and plans work on adaptation in monthly conference calls, an active committee structure, and biannual planning meetings. WUCA continues to produce value for members and influence the developing climate change adaptation arena. This past year, activities and outputs included: 1) partnering with the Water Research Foundation to initiate development of an approach and tool to support climate-resilient infrastructure investments and strategies in the water sector; 2) a WUCA workgroup analysis, with outside experts, of new climate model output from IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and the implications of this new science for water managers building resilience to climate change; and 3) evaluation of hydrologic model representation of vegetation changes under climate change, in partnership with the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Last year, WUCA initiated a two-year partnership with the U.S. Water Alliance to assess opportunities and develop a set of recommended strategies to incorporate equity into WUCA and its members’ climate adaptation and mitigation efforts and related goals. This project supports WUCA’s strategic plan goal to incorporate consideration of equity into all of WUCA’s work. SFPUC staff provided information on our equity work to help initiate this project. In 2023, WUCA initiated peer exchanges with the Alliance's Water Equity Network, a national community of practice collaborating to advance equitable water management practices
Bay Area Climate Adaptation Network
In 2018, the SFPUC helped launch the Bay Area Climate Adaptation Network (BayCAN – www.baycanadapt.org), a collaborative of local government and community-based organization leaders that promotes collaboration, networking, and co-planning across institutional boundaries on approaches to climate change adaptation. Part of a network of eight regional collaboratives across the state (https://arccacalifornia.org/about/) and chaired by the SFPUC since its inception (now co- chaired), BayCAN continues to focus on sea level rise, wildfire and smoke, water and wastewater, public health, climate justice and frontline communities and other adaptation issues. In 2023, as additional resources become available from the state this year and next, BayCAN’s role as a convener and collaborator in the region continues to advance adaptation practice. For example, BayCAN is partnering with the Bay Area Regional Collaborative (BARC) to provide engagement on a systems assessment of technical assistance providers in the region. BayCAN is also working on partnerships with the Governor's Office of Planning and Research to support the 5th Climate Assessment’s regional summary, and with other State and federal organizations to bring resources and expertise into the Bay Area in support of BayCAN members and partners. BayCAN launched a
Funding Tracker to help curate and categorize the various opportunities for funding resilience in communities across the region.
Science and Society, Research and Practice
Beginning with our efforts to launch and develop WUCA, the SFPUC has for years helped lead efforts to bridge the cultural and knowledge chasms between climate scientists and adaptation practitioners (“practitioners” is a term referring to those who are engaged in the practice of developing or implementing adaptation projects or programs). Better collaboration and communication between these communities is necessary as both science and practice evolve. Over the past year, a number of SFPUC initiatives have produced valuable knowledge and relationships that can help break down barriers:
1) Served on a Practitioner Advisory Board advising the California Ocean Protection Council and Ocean Science Trust in the updating of California’s Sea-Level Rise Guidance. SFPUC, POSF, and others have been critical of the current guidance, adopted in 2018, that did a poor job of translating best available science and caused significant confusion among coastal practitioners since adoption. The revision will likely be released for comment in the next few months.
2) Co-authored the first ever survey of the uptake of science among sea level practitioners globally, which revealed that we currently do not have common approaches to the use of climate science in the adaptation community (Hirschfeld, D., Behar, D., Nicholls, R. et al. 2023. A Global Survey of the Application of Sea-Level Projections. Communications Earth and Environment. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00703-x . 3) Co-a uthored with noted sea level scientists an article to improve “high-end” sea level rise projections for use by practitioners in planning. This paper combines social and physical science to address the chaotic environment in recent years as new high-end estimates driven largely by experimental modeling related to polar ice melt are produced at a rapid clip. This has led to confusion among planners seeking to understand high end risk and led to flawed guidance documents at times, most notably in California. (Van de Wal, R., Nicholls, R., Behar, D., et al. A High-End Estimate of Sea-level Rise for Practitioners. 2022. Earth’s Future https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF002751.
4) Co-authored a report summarizing the state of coastal resilience practice derived from practitioner-led workshops co-chaired by SFPUC. These workshops, the first of their kind, provide numerous identified needs and recommendation to improve adaptation practice.
Boyle, R., Hirschfeld, D., & Behar, D., Sea-Level Rise Practitioner Workshop Report: Leading Practices and Current Challenges. From Practitioner-led Workshops to Advance Resilience to Sea-Level Rise: Leading Practices and Current Challenges. November 2022. https://doi.org/10.26077/npej-vw36
Practitioner Exchange for Effective Response to Sea Level Rise (PEERS) Building on recent collaborative and thought leadership work, the SFPUC helped launch PEERS in 2023. The first global community of practice led by practitioners and focused on coastal resilience, PEERS seeks to support effective and timely coastal adaptation and resilience by connecting and supporting a global network of practitioners and partners. In late 2022 and 2023 PEERS held three widely attended webinars featuring the much touted “adaptation pathways” approach to plan long term resilience under uncertainty, learning from experiences among local communities in the U.S. and globally. It initiated a partnership with NASA to leverage 30 years of satellite data to co-produce high quality coastal inundation maps to evaluate flooding scenarios driven by SLR, storm surge, and other factors. Officially launched in October 2023, PEERS begins its work with over 350 members, including over 125 in the United States, providing potential for building networks that can learn from one another across geographic, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries.