Significant challenges to the sustainability of the California coast considering climate change.

Climate change is an existential threat to the environmental and socioeconomic sustainability of the coastal zone and impacts will be complex and widespread. Evidence from California and across the United States shows that climate change is impacting coastal communities and challenging managers with a plethora of stressors already present. Widespread action could be taken that would sustain California's coastal ecosystems and communities. In this perspective, we highlight the main threat to coastal sustainability: the compound effects of episodic events amplified with ongoing climate change, which will present unprecedented challenges to the state. We present two key challenges for California's sustainability in the coastal zone: 1) accelerating sea-level rise combined with storm impacts, and 2) continued warming of the oceans and marine heatwaves. Cascading effects from these types of compounding events will occur within the context of an already stressed system that has experienced extensive alterations due to intensive development, resource extraction and harvesting, spatial containment, and other human use pressures. There are critical components that could be used to address these immediate concerns, including comanagement strategies that include diverse groups and organizations, strategic planning integrated across large areas, rapid implementation of solutions, and a cohesive and policy relevant research agenda for the California coast. Much of this has been started in the state, but the scale could be increased, and timelines accelerated. The ideas and information presented here are intended to help expand discussions to sharpen the focus on how to encourage sustainability of California's iconic coastal region.

Increasing Salt Marsh Elevation Using Sediment Augmentation: Critical Insights from Surface Sediments and Sediment Cores.

Sea-level rise is particularly concerning for tidal wetlands that reside within an area with steep topography or are constrained by human development and alteration of sedimentation. Sediment augmentation to increase wetland elevations has been considered as a potential strategy for such areas to prevent wetland loss over the coming decades. However, there is little information on the best approaches and whether adaptive management actions can mimic natural processes to build sea-level rise resilience. In addition, the lack of information on long-term marsh characteristics, processes, and variability can hamper development of effective augmentation strategies. Here, we assess a case study in a southern California marsh to determine the nature of the pre-existing sediments and variability of the site in relation to sediments applied during an augmentation experiment. Although sediment cores revealed natural variations in the grain size and organic content of sediments deposited at the site over the past 1500 years, the applied sediments were markedly coarser in grain size than prehistoric sediments at the site (100% maximum sand versus 76% maximum sand). The rate of the experimental sediment application (25.1 ± 1.09 cm in ~2 months) was also much more rapid than natural accretion rates measured for the site historically. In contrast, post-augmentation sediment accretion rates on the augmentation site have been markedly slower than pre-augmentation rates or current rates on a nearby control site. The mismatch between the characteristics of the applied sediment and thickness of application and the historic conditions are likely strong contributors to the slow initial recovery of vegetation. Sediment augmentation has been shown to be a useful strategy in some marshes, but this case study illustrates that vegetation recovery may be slow if applied sediments are not similar or at a thickness similar to historic conditions. However, testing adaptation strategies to build wetland elevations is important given the long-term risk of habitat loss with sea-level rise. Lessons learned in the case study could be applied elsewhere.

Climate Change and water in Southwestern North America special feature: water, climate change, and sustainability in the southwest.

The current Southwest drought is exceptional for its high temperatures and arguably the most severe in history. Coincidentally, there has been an increase in forest and woodland mortality due to fires and pathogenic outbreaks. Although the high temperatures and aridity are consistent with projected impacts of greenhouse warming, it is unclear whether the drought can be attributed to increased greenhouse gases or is a product of natural climatic variability. Climate models indicate that the 21st century will be increasingly arid and droughts more severe and prolonged. Forest and woodland mortality due to fires and pathogens will increase. Demography and food security dictate that water demand in the Southwest will remain appreciable. If projected population growth is twinned with suburb-centered development, domestic demands will intensify. Meeting domestic demands through transference from agriculture presents concerns for rural sustainability and food security. Environmental concerns will limit additional transference from rivers. It is unlikely that traditional supply-side solutions such as more dams will securely meet demands at current per-capita levels. Significant savings in domestic usage can be realized through decreased applications of potable water to landscaping, but this is a small fraction of total regional water use, which is dominated by agriculture. Technical innovations, policy measures, and market-based solutions that increase supply and decrease water demand are all needed. Meeting 21st-century sustainability challenges in the Southwest will also require planning, cooperation, and integration that surpass 20th-century efforts in terms of geographic scope, jurisdictional breadth, multisectoral engagement, and the length of planning timelines.

A 1,200-year perspective of 21st century drought in southwestern North America.

A key feature of anticipated 21st century droughts in Southwest North America is the concurrence of elevated temperatures and increased aridity. Instrumental records and paleoclimatic evidence for past prolonged drought in the Southwest that coincide with elevated temperatures can be assessed to provide insights on temperature-drought relations and to develop worst-case scenarios for the future. In particular, during the medieval period, ∼AD 900-1300, the Northern Hemisphere experienced temperatures warmer than all but the most recent decades. Paleoclimatic and model data indicate increased temperatures in western North America of approximately 1 °C over the long-term mean. This was a period of extensive and persistent aridity over western North America. Paleoclimatic evidence suggests drought in the mid-12th century far exceeded the severity, duration, and extent of subsequent droughts. The driest decade of this drought was anomalously warm, though not as warm as the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The convergence of prolonged warming and arid conditions suggests the mid-12th century may serve as a conservative analogue for severe droughts that might occur in the future. The severity, extent, and persistence of the 12th century drought that occurred under natural climate variability, have important implications for water resource management. The causes of past and future drought will not be identical but warm droughts, inferred from paleoclimatic records, demonstrate the plausibility of extensive, severe droughts, provide a long-term perspective on the ongoing drought conditions in the Southwest, and suggest the need for regional sustainability planning for the future.

Sea-level rise, habitat loss, and potential extirpation of a salt marsh specialist bird in urbanized landscapes.

Sea-level rise (SLR) impacts on intertidal habitat depend on coastal topology, accretion, and constraints from surrounding development. Such habitat changes might affect species like Belding's savannah sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis beldingi; BSSP), which live in high-elevation salt marsh in the Southern California Bight. To predict how BSSP habitat might change under various SLR scenarios, we first constructed a suitability model by matching bird observations with elevation. We then mapped current BSSP breeding and foraging habitat at six estuarine sites by applying the elevation-suitability model to digital elevation models. To estimate changes in digital elevation models under different SLR scenarios, we used a site-specific, one-dimensional elevation model (wetland accretion rate model of ecosystem resilience). We then applied our elevation-suitability model to the projected digital elevation models. The resulting maps suggest that suitable breeding and foraging habitat could decline as increased inundation converts middle- and high-elevation suitable habitat to mudflat and subtidal zones. As a result, the highest SLR scenario predicted that no suitable breeding or foraging habitat would remain at any site by 2100 and 2110. Removing development constraints to facilitate landward migration of high salt marsh, or redistributing dredge spoils to replace submerged habitat, might create future high salt marsh habitat, thereby reducing extirpation risk for BSSP in southern California.

Integrating the social, hydrological and ecological dimensions of freshwater health: The Freshwater Health Index.

Degradation of freshwater ecosystems and the services they provide is a primary cause of increasing water insecurity, raising the need for integrated solutions to freshwater management. While methods for characterizing the multi-faceted challenges of managing freshwater ecosystems abound, they tend to emphasize either social or ecological dimensions and fall short of being truly integrative. This paper suggests that management for sustainability of freshwater systems needs to consider the linkages between human water uses, freshwater ecosystems and governance. We present a conceptualization of freshwater resources as part of an integrated social-ecological system and propose a set of corresponding indicators to monitor freshwater ecosystem health and to highlight priorities for management. We demonstrate an application of this new framework -the Freshwater Health Index (FHI) - in the Dongjiang River Basin in southern China, where stakeholders are addressing multiple and conflicting freshwater demands. By combining empirical and modeled datasets with surveys to gauge stakeholders' preferences and elicit expert information about governance mechanisms, the FHI helps stakeholders understand the status of freshwater ecosystems in their basin, how ecosystems are being manipulated to enhance or decrease water-related services, and how well the existing water resource management regime is equipped to govern these dynamics over time. This framework helps to operationalize a truly integrated approach to water resource management by recognizing the interplay between governance, stakeholders, freshwater ecosystems and the services they provide.

Author Correction: Accuracy and Precision of Tidal Wetland Soil Carbon Mapping in the Conterminous United States.

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has not been fixed in the paper.

Accuracy and Precision of Tidal Wetland Soil Carbon Mapping in the Conterminous United States.

Tidal wetlands produce long-term soil organic carbon (C) stocks. Thus for carbon accounting purposes, we need accurate and precise information on the magnitude and spatial distribution of those stocks. We assembled and analyzed an unprecedented soil core dataset, and tested three strategies for mapping carbon stocks: applying the average value from the synthesis to mapped tidal wetlands, applying models fit using empirical data and applied using soil, vegetation and salinity maps, and relying on independently generated soil carbon maps. Soil carbon stocks were far lower on average and varied less spatially and with depth than stocks calculated from available soils maps. Further, variation in carbon density was not well-predicted based on climate, salinity, vegetation, or soil classes. Instead, the assembled dataset showed that carbon density across the conterminous united states (CONUS) was normally distributed, with a predictable range of observations. We identified the simplest strategy, applying mean carbon density (27.0 kg C m-3), as the best performing strategy, and conservatively estimated that the top meter of CONUS tidal wetland soil contains 0.72 petagrams C. This strategy could provide standardization in CONUS tidal carbon accounting until such a time as modeling and mapping advancements can quantitatively improve accuracy and precision.

Little Ice Age climatic erraticism as an analogue for future enhanced hydroclimatic variability across the American Southwest.

The American Southwest has experienced a series of severe droughts interspersed with strong wet episodes over the past decades, prompting questions about future climate patterns and potential intensification of weather disruptions under warming conditions. Here we show that interannual hydroclimatic variability in this region has displayed a significant level of non-stationarity over the past millennium. Our tree ring-based analysis of past drought indicates that the Little Ice Age (LIA) experienced high interannual hydroclimatic variability, similar to projections for the 21st century. This is contrary to the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), which had reduced variability and therefore may be misleading as an analog for 21st century warming, notwithstanding its warm (and arid) conditions. Given past non-stationarity, and particularly erratic LIA, a 'warm LIA' climate scenario for the coming century that combines high precipitation variability (similar to LIA conditions) with warm and dry conditions (similar to MCA conditions) represents a plausible situation that is supported by recent climate simulations. Our comparison of tree ring-based drought analysis and records from the tropical Pacific Ocean suggests that changing variability in El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) explains much of the contrasting variances between the MCA and LIA conditions across the American Southwest. Greater ENSO variability for the 21st century could be induced by a decrease in meridional sea surface temperature gradient caused by increased greenhouse gas concentration, as shown by several recent climate modeling experiments. Overall, these results coupled with the paleo-record suggests that using the erratic LIA conditions as benchmarks for past hydroclimatic variability can be useful for developing future water-resource management and drought and flood hazard mitigation strategies in the Southwest.

Prolonged California aridity linked to climate warming and Pacific sea surface temperature.

California has experienced a dry 21(st) century capped by severe drought from 2012 through 2015 prompting questions about hydroclimatic sensitivity to anthropogenic climate change and implications for the future. We address these questions using a Holocene lake sediment record of hydrologic change from the Sierra Nevada Mountains coupled with marine sediment records from the Pacific. These data provide evidence of a persistent relationship between past climate warming, Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) shifts and centennial to millennial episodes of California aridity. The link is most evident during the thermal-maximum of the mid-Holocene (~8 to 3 ka; ka = 1,000 calendar years before present) and during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) (~1 ka to 0.7 ka). In both cases, climate warming corresponded with cooling of the eastern tropical Pacific despite differences in the factors producing increased radiative forcing. The magnitude of prolonged eastern Pacific cooling was modest, similar to observed La Niña excursions of 1(o) to 2 °C. Given differences with current radiative forcing it remains uncertain if the Pacific will react in a similar manner in the 21st century, but should it follow apparent past behavior more intense and prolonged aridity in California would result.

Rapid early development of circumarctic peatlands and atmospheric CH4 and CO2 variations.

An analysis of 1516 radiocarbon dates demonstrates that the development of the current circumarctic peatlands began approximately 16.5 thousand years ago (ka) and expanded explosively between 12 and 8 ka in concert with high summer insolation and increasing temperatures. Their rapid development contributed to the sustained peak in CH4 and modest decline of CO2 during the early Holocene and likely contributed to CH4 and CO2 fluctuations during earlier interglacial and interstadial transitions. Given the decreased tempo of peatland initiation in the late Holocene and the transition of many from fens (which generated high levels of CH4) to ombrotrophic bogs, a neoglacial expansion of northern peatlands cannot explain the increase in atmospheric CH4 that occurred after 6 ka.