Coastal Services Center

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Southern California

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Southern California’s high population density and large local economy make it especially susceptible to coastal storms. Individual storm events not only can cost millions to billions of dollars, they can also result in environmental damage and loss of human life. CSP staff members met with state and local decision makers to identify Southern California’s storm inundation needs. NOAA hopes to reduce the damages coastal storms will inflict on the region by developing new weather observation tools, flood and pollutant transportation models, and a host of other models and services.

Geographic Scope of the Project

The third CSP project area focuses on an area from Point Conception to the Mexican border, a region known as the Southern California bight. Click the image to the right for a detailed view of the project extent.

Project Goals and Objectives

CSP goals include undertaking and funding projects designed to improve the prediction of, preparation for, and recovery from coastal storms. CSP is mitigating the impacts of coastal inundationon the region’s economy and 16 million residents by deploying and developing tools that aid in the preparation and response to inundation.

Key Partners

The Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of Southern California, California Coastal Commission, California National Estuarine Research Reserves, Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, city and county offices of emergency services, Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System, University of California–Davis, California and University of Southern California Sea Grant, and San Diego Flood Control District.

Products

The Southern California effort is ongoing but is currently a compilation of several projects that address specific inundation and ecological impacts from storm events. Two to three additional projects are expect to be developed in 2008, which will result in a larger suite of new and improved tools, data, information, forecast models, and training for the coastal communities in the project study area.

For Additional Information:

To help facilitate communication between the local community and the NOAA staff, each pilot has two coordinators—one federal and one local. The federal coordinator for the Southern California pilot is Becky Smyth (Rebecca.Smyth@noaa.gov), who works for NOAA and is located in San Francisco . The local outreach coordinator, Dolores Wesson (dwesson@ucsd.edu), is with Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System (working out of La Jolla , California ). Her role is to help users connect to projects in order to translate scientific information into usable information and tools for the community.