Transforming Sea Level Rise into an Opportunity

In a recent paper in the Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, 25 co-authors write that sea level rise “presents people in our region with an opportunity to work together and envision a more just and resilient future,” write the authors, who came together from a wide swath of academia, Indigenous Tribes and community as well as government organizations. All authors are members of the interdisciplinary Sea Level Rise Institute at Cal Poly Humboldt. The SLRI formed in 2018 as a multidisciplinary initiative to incubate new “equitable, resilient and transformative” sea level rise solutions. Sea level rise “can only begin to be understood and addressed if different disciplines and types of knowledge are brought together,” the authors write.

The paper highlights five areas of expertise in particular: Indigenous knowledges, geosciences, marine and coastal science, engineering and social science. Taking inspiration from the seminal book “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Potawatomi Nation citizen and biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer, the authors state: “We can envision these different approaches or strands winding together and, in the winding, shaping and influencing one another until neither the individual disciplines nor the overall approach remain the same.”

Complex problems

The scale of the problem is made clear at the abandoned lumber mills that dot the Northern Californian coast, where the soil is often contaminated with wood-preserving toxins. The mills sit inside the levees, but the ground beneath them is sinking — as is much of the land around Humboldt Bay. The region lies atop two convergent tectonic plates, that is with one plate sliding beneath the other. As the lower plate descends, it’s pulling the upper plate with it. “Southern Humboldt Bay is going down at a rate of about 4.5 millimeters a year and the sea level is rising 1.5 millimeters per year, which means that the sea level is actually rising five to six millimeters per year,” says Patton. By 2060, the sea level of Humboldt Bay is expected to be as much as three feet higher than today.

Engineering higher dikes might seem like an obvious fix — but this won’t solve the problem. As the sea rises, the groundwater in the inland soils get pushed upward, too. This can cause areas behind the levees to flood from below and wash toxins from the contaminated mill soil into supplies of drinking water.

Braiding different strands of knowledge together

Challenges like this are “going to take a lot of smart people to figure out,” says SLRI member Jennifer Kalt, the director of the non-profit Humboldt Baykeeper and a co-author of the paper. Engineers may focus on 'hard' structures, like sea channels and sea walls, while marine and coastal scientists focus on 'soft' solutions like natural shorelines that buffer waves and restoration of contaminated coasts. Geologists can model where land movements create particularly high risk. Social scientists will work with landowners and communities to decide where to fight sea level rise and where to retreat. Indigenous tribes who have held stewardship of the land around Humboldt Bay since time immortal can contribute centuries worth of knowledge of the coast and its wetlands.

“Our areas of expertise overlap. And if they don’t, then maybe they should,” says Kalt. “Sometimes when you're in your little silo, you don't really know about other perspectives.”

Sea Level Rise

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