Increasing threat of coastal groundwater hazards from sea-level rise in California

K. M. Befus (), P. L. Barnard, D. J. Hoover, J. A. Finzi Hart and C. I. Voss
Additional contact information
K. M. Befus: University of Wyoming
P. L. Barnard: United States Geological Survey
D. J. Hoover: United States Geological Survey
J. A. Finzi Hart: United States Geological Survey
C. I. Voss: United States Geological Survey

Nature Climate Change, 2020, vol. 10, issue 10, 946-952

Abstract: Abstract Projected sea-level rise will raise coastal water tables, resulting in groundwater hazards that threaten shallow infrastructure and coastal ecosystem resilience. Here we model a range of sea-level rise scenarios to assess the responses of water tables across the diverse topography and climates of the California coast. With 1 m of sea-level rise, areas flooded from below are predicted to expand ~50–130 m inland, and low-lying coastal communities such as those around San Francisco Bay are most at risk. Coastal topography is a controlling factor; long-term rising water tables will intercept low-elevation drainage features, allowing for groundwater discharge that damps the extent of shoaling in ~70% (68.9–82.2%) of California’s coastal water tables. Ignoring these topography-limited responses increases flooded-area forecasts by ~20% and substantially underestimates saltwater intrusion. All scenarios estimate that areas with shallow coastal water tables will shrink as they are inundated by overland flooding or are topographically limited from rising inland.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0874-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:10:y:2020:i:10:d:10.1038_s41558-020-0874-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-020-0874-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().