In the Santa Barbara-Ventura central coast region, BEACON has an important role to play in assisting local and regional adaptation effort. In the past two years, BEACON staff have been working with several local jurisdictions, supporting their efforts to develop local vulnerability and adaptation plans and projects, including projects in the cities of Ventura, Carpinteria, and Santa Barbara.

In the coming year, BEACON Staff will be preparing a regional adaptation policies report, building on the local adaptation efforts of BEACON member agencies. Potential areas of collaboration include: regional shoreline monitoring; sediment management, beach nourishment, and potential beach berm or dune formation; regional agreement on principles for adaptation; joint grant and funding opportunities; joint studies of case law and adaptation options; and coordinated consultation with state and federal legislators and agencies on regional needs.

BEACON Staff has scheduled presentations over the past year from the member agencies that have begun SLR vulnerability and adaptation efforts (six of the eight BEACON member agencies) in order to better understand the range of possible regional-scale adaptation actions that BEACON could consider, as the member agency efforts have identified several specific regional-scale adaptation actions that are needed to be further investigated and analyzed. BEACON staff will be collecting these actions into an evaluation matrix and present a report to the BEACON Board as the basis for developing a BEACON Regional SLR Adaptation Policies document.

BEACON Member agency presentations to the BEACON Board are available here.