Applying a Coastal Vulnerability Index to San Mateo County: Implications for Shoreline Management.

Abstract

ABSTRACT Gerrity, B.; Phillips, M.R., and Chambers, C., 2018. Applying a Coastal Vulnerability Index to San Mateo County: Implications for Shoreline Management In: Shim, J.-S.; Chun, I., and Lim, H.S. (eds.), Proceedings from the International Coastal Symposium (ICS) 2018 (Busan, Republic of Korea). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 85, pp. 1406–1410. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Climate change will cause increased coastal erosion and flooding along vulnerable shorelines and, therefore, to assess risk along the coastline and bayline of San Mateo County, a coastal vulnerability index (CVI) was used. San Mateo County is on a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, and therefore has both bay and ocean shorelines. The CVI measured physical parameters such as beach width, distance to 20 meter isobath, distance of vegetation behind the back beach, dune width and percentage rocky outcrop in order to produce relative vulnerabilities along both ocean and bay shorelines. ...