{"id":677033,"date":"2026-03-23T23:24:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T23:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/677033\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T23:24:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T23:24:32","slug":"for-this-bay-area-island-city-water-is-coming-from-all-sides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/677033\/","title":{"rendered":"For This Bay Area Island City, Water Is Coming From All Sides"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a lot when we think about all that needs to be done, and we\u2019ve started to wrap our heads around that,\u201d Mieler said. \u201cWe need to raise the shoreline.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city tasked Mieler and her team with completing an adaptation plan for Alameda, including solutions, by early 2028. They are considering lining beaches with boulders to slow waves, raising earthen and concrete barriers to keep water from entering neighborhoods and even letting the bay reclaim parts of the island. They\u2019re also planning nature-based solutions, such as restoring marshes and experimenting with oyster reefs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a little testbed,\u201d for potential fixes that cities around the Bay Area could use, Mieler said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Danielle Mieler looks out at Alameda Beach in Alameda on March 19, 2026. (Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

The Bay Area\u2019s most populous island<\/a> isn\u2019t trying to adapt on its own. Alameda is among the first to align with a state-led sea-level rise plan<\/a>, mandating that every coastal city and county in the Bay Area develop plans to address sea level rise. The city is collaborating with Oakland and the Port of Oakland on a plan to protect the area.<\/p>\n

Alameda is a strong case study for the Bay Area, climate scientists said, because it will need to use every tool possible to protect its 360-degree waterfront. But they caution city planners against overhardening shorelines and encourage them to embrace living with water where possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlameda feels different because it\u2019s surrounded, but if you unspool it and make it linear, it\u2019s the same challenge that\u2019s faced by any other bayfront community,\u201d said Mark Stacey, a UC Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s all a little bit man-made\u2019<\/p>\n

Alameda wasn\u2019t always an island, and its non-island portion, called Bay Farm Island, ironically, was once only an island at high tide. In 1902, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finished dredging a canal between Alameda and Oakland. Later in the century, developers filled in the marshy peninsula connecting the Bay Farm area to the shore.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all a bit man-made,\u201d Mieler said. \u201cWe like to think that this is what Alameda is, but this is not what Alameda was 100 years ago, and it\u2019s not what it\u2019s going to be in 100 years either.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Boulders line sections of Alameda Beach in order to reduce the erosion of the waterfront on March 20, 2026. (Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

The island is relatively flat, with its highest elevation just 39 feet above sea level. In addition, much of the island was built on fill.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlameda is at the forefront of sea level rise hazards,\u201d said Kevin Befus, associate professor at the University of Arkansas Department of Geosciences. \u201cIf we left things as is and sea levels were higher, large areas of the island would flood.\u201d<\/p>\n

California has experienced about 8 inches of sea level rise over the past century. As the world continues to warm due to fossil fuel burning, the bay could rise about a foot by midcentury and more than 6 feet by the end of the century, according to the state\u2019s latest sea level rise guidance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alameda can expect water from all directions: rising seas, torrential downpours, storm-driven surges that intensify high tides and groundwater pushed upwards as soils become saturated.<\/p>\n

\"\"Mariner Square in Alameda as seen from Jack London Square in Oakland on March 20, 2026. (Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

People living on this 23-square-mile island got a preview of that wetter future in January during abnormally high king tides<\/a>. Waves crashed into dunes, filling Shore Line Drive. Runners splashed through brackish water pouring onto trails, and water gushed from at least one storm drain.<\/p>\n

The flooding mirrors what daily tides will look like by midcentury, and Mieler said, the spots that \u201cflooded were places that we know need to be addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the city took a do-nothing approach, Mieler said, water could engulf streets, homes, businesses, and the Posey and Webster Street tubes that connect traffic to Oakland and the mainland.<\/p>\n

\"\"Cars enter the Posey Tube in Alameda on March 20, 2026. (Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

But water from above is not the only issue. Patrick Barnard, research director for the UC Santa Cruz Center for Coastal Climate Resilience, said about 60% of Alameda\u2019s groundwater is already close to the surface \u2014 without further sea level rise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know there are lots of issues in Alameda, but bottom line, it\u2019s effectively ground zero for groundwater hazards in the Bay,\u201d Barnard said.<\/p>\n

Kris May, who has lived in Alameda since 2011, knows this firsthand. She\u2019s already dealing with rising groundwater in her home, where water pushes through cracks in her basement floor. She installed two sump pumps to remove it.<\/p>\n

\"\"Kris May examines the cracks in the basement floor of her home in Alameda on March 18, 2026. (Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

\u201cOur sump pumps work great, but the water keeps finding new ways to get in,\u201d May said.<\/p>\n

May is one of the scientists the city has hired to understand flood risk and develop solutions. She\u2019s the founder of Pathways Climate Institute, a San Francisco-based consulting firm, and has conducted extensive research on groundwater rise.<\/p>\n

\u201cSea level rise is pushing that baseline groundwater table up and reducing that kind of sponge capacity,\u201d May said. \u201cIt\u2019s a hazard that is getting worse and worse over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s one of my nightmares\u2019<\/p>\n

To protect this island from the nastiest effects of the altered climate, the community will need to decide what it values enough to save.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is that thing that gives that sense of place, and how can that be saved?\u201d Stacey said.<\/p>\n

\"\"People enjoy Alameda Beach in Alameda on March 20, 2026. (Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

One of those places could be Alameda Beach on the city\u2019s west side, where hundreds gather on hot days<\/a>. Stacey said that if the city decides the beach is worth preserving, planners could study how to retain sand during storms and develop other solutions<\/a>. But he noted the beach is human-made, and that preservation may require \u201csome retreat\u201d so it can migrate.<\/p>\n

For Alameda residents like Alex Spehr, protecting outdoor spaces is important. \u201cI like our beaches,\u201d Spehr said, but acknowledged that if \u201cour beaches all wash away, at some point, you can\u2019t just keep dumping sand to replace them. Preserving our habitat is important.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a lot when we think about all that needs to be done, and we\u2019ve started…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":677034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[746,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-677033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116281073150120718","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}