Knee Deep Times: How Two Rivers Could Rescue Sinking Beaches and Marshes

The only barrier between the Boardwalk and the sea is Main Beach, which, at less than 100 feet wide in some spots, is vulnerable to sea level rise — like so many other beaches and wetlands in the Bay Area…. Sometimes the San Lorenzo River provides the beach with an all-natural boost. Researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey have found that flooding events during particularly wet years result in the river sending loads of beach-building sediment to Santa Cruz, giving the dwindling Main Beach an elevation boost that lasts for three or four years before it starts to wane again. Their study, published in Geophysical Research Letters earlier this yea, is one of a handful of similar efforts in the San Francisco Bay Area examining the movement of mud, clay, silt, and sand through watersheds to better understand how to prepare for and benefit from sediment transfer to shorelines and coasts that need to bulk up. Read ON.