Involving the community, as in Oceanside, California, is key to co-developing long-term resilience for coastal cities battling to save their beaches from rising sea levels and erosion.

Resilient Cities Catalyst’s California Resilience Partnership (CRP) Program have joined with The Resilience Shift to learn about and share real-life resilience stories, from across California that explore how things might be done differently and to understand the shift in perspective and in practice that is enabling this change.

Southern California’s coasts are on the frontline of climate change. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report confirmed that the region, like other coastal communities, will experience more frequent flooding and increased cliff, bluff, and beach erosion. With beaches and bluffs eroding at an annually accelerating rate, communities and the ecosystems they depend upon face significant risks.

A thriving coastal city, Oceanside is one of many cities battling to save its beaches from rising sea levels and erosion. After years of traditional planning and coastal management strategies, the City is now piloting a new approach. In the summer of 2021, the Oceanside City Council voted to take action with a plan to stabilize its beach. The hope is that this process, and testing a new approach, will buy some time to plan for the future. The pilot approach aims to involve the community to protect community assets and co-develop a long-term sustainability strategy.

Every coastline and community is different: a solution that works well in one place may not be the best for another. But, other coastal communities facing similar challenges can learn from this process. 

To view this video and others in the series, please visit: https://www.resilienceshift.org/california-learning/  or  www.rcc.city/crpvideos

Video Production Team:

• Eric Arthur Fernandez of Raffia Pictures (DP/Director)
• Nick Curran (Editor)
• Loroto Productions (Post-production services)