But 100 years ago, when Hollywood starlet Marion Davies<\/a> lived in this once-rural spot of coast, standing this close to the house would put you knee deep in water at high tide.<\/p>\n \u201cThat low white concrete wall was the sea wall to protect the pool, to protect the backyard of that home,\u201d said Tom Ford, CEO of the Santa Monica Bay Foundation, gesturing toward the house.<\/p>\n A century ago this wide flat beach was far narrower. Many beaches in the Santa Monica Bay were artificially widened from the 1930s through the 1960s.<\/p>\n Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n The sand came from an ancient system of coastal dunes that extended from LAX all the way to the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The endangered El Segundo blue butterfly<\/a> is found only in the dunes\u2019 restored, fragmented remains.<\/p>\n Expanding dune restoration<\/p>\n Now, change is coming again to this iconic stretch of beach. For a decade, The Bay Foundation<\/a> has been figuring out how to bring back pieces of those ancient dunes. So far, the nonprofit has restored small patches of dunes on beaches from Point Dume to Manhattan Beach.<\/p>\n Their latest, and largest dune restoration effort so far, will extend about 30 acres south of Santa Monica pier to the border with Venice. Announced last month<\/a>, it\u2019s possible thanks to a partnership with the city and a $2 million state grant.<\/p>\n The nonprofit first installed dunes in Santa Monica in 2016 \u2014 \u201cinstalled\u201d meaning they put in a simple rope and little wood fence around about 3 acres, then scattered a bunch of native dune plant seeds. Nature did the rest.<\/p>\n The historic extent of sand dunes in the southern Santa Monica Bay. <\/p>\n (<\/p>\n Courtesy Kyle Emery<\/p>\n \/<\/p>\n UC Santa Barbara<\/p>\n )<\/p>\n Now across about 8 acres of this beach, dunes up to 5 feet tall are crowned with low-lying plants: blossoming yellow beach evening primrose flowers, light green beach bur, saltbush \u2014 a foundational plant for growing dunes, Ford said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are super tough characters. They can handle the salt water, they can handle the salt air,” Ford said. \u201cTheir big roots are extending down into the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n The native dune plants will provide more habitat to shorebirds, including snowy plovers, a threatened species.<\/p>\n Snowy plovers are a threatened species. <\/p>\n (<\/p>\n Photo by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\/Southeast<\/p>\n \/<\/p>\n Licensed under CC BY 2.0<\/p>\n )<\/p>\n Ropes and signs surround the dunes to discourage people from trampling them. <\/p>\n Within a few months of the dunes installation in 2016, a snowy plover nest appeared on Santa Monica Beach for the first time in some 70 years<\/a>. Now, they can be spotted scurrying about the driftwood and dune plants.<\/p>\n Birds migrating thousands of miles along the Pacific Flyway will be able to rest and forage here too.<\/p>\n Not only that, the dunes can lessen the amount of sand that blows onto the bike path, parking lots and roads, a regular nuisance for city maintenance crews.<\/p>\n Help restore dunes<\/p>\n The Bay Foundation relies on volunteers to help with dune restoration, and a lot more help will be needed as the nonprofit expands their efforts. Find volunteer opportunities here<\/a>. <\/p>\n Dunes and sea level rise<\/p>\n Long term, the dunes can help combat rising sea levels.<\/p>\n \u201cBetween the sea level rising and getting taller, more frequent, more violent storms hitting our coastline, we’re likely to lose the beach,\u201d Ford said.<\/p>\n Scientists estimate that our warming planet is likely to raise ocean levels at least 3 feet<\/a>. At that level, as many as 75% of California’s beaches<\/a> could be gone by 2100 without intervention.<\/p>\n But dunes \u201cstart to build a beach that grows in height, and that helps us keep up with sea level rise,\u201d Ford said.<\/p>\n Tom Ford, CEO of the Santa Monica Bay Foundation.<\/p>\n Ford picks up trash next to a plant blossoming on a dune.<\/p>\n Sand dunes can withstand only so much water, <\/b>but the Santa Monica dunes have been shown to reduce erosion and flooding.<\/p>\n Native dune plants hold onto sand, while allowing the dunes to remain dynamic, reducing erosion. That\u2019s opposed to introduced species like iceplant, which have squeezed out many native dune plants and are akin to concrete to wildlife.<\/p>\n When not carpeted by iceplant, the dunes themselves can absorb waves\u2019 energy, displacing less sand and redistributing it in a way that allows the beach to recover. In contrast, sea walls trigger a scouring effect when the waves reverberate off of them, said UC Santa Barbara coastal ecologist Kyle Emery, who is part of a team that has surveyed more than 120 dune restoration sites across the state, including the Santa Monica dunes.<\/p>\n His research found that those dunes also reduced flooding on the beach during significant storms in the winter of 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cThat restored dune site was able to prevent about 14 meters or 50 feet of water runup on the beach,\u201d Emery said.<\/p>\n A batch of younger dunes forming on Santa Monica beach. <\/p>\n There are only so many ways to adapt to rising sea levels. We may have to abandon some areas. Nourishing beaches with sand<\/a> is one expensive tool<\/a>.There\u2019s hard infrastructure like sea walls, but that\u2019s costly and worsens erosion. You can build sand berms like the ones that go up in the winter in Orange County \u2014 those can protect infrastructure, but don\u2019t have much benefit for wildlife (or ocean views).<\/p>\n As for dunes?<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ve demonstrated that this nature-based solution can protect against sea level rise and storm-driven wave erosion,\u201d Emery said.<\/p>\n Still, Emery emphasized, dunes are no silver bullet. Dunes won\u2019t work everywhere, and some places are likely to simply be too inundated with water. More long-term research is needed, Emery said, but so far the research on dunes shows promise. The wide, flat, groomed beach we’re all used to in Santa Monica. <\/p>\n Restored dunes stretch along the shore in the other direction.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774404562_748_.png\")
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A 2023 state law<\/a> requires all coastal areas to plan for sea level rise \u2014 dunes are mentioned as a nature-based strategy. And Proposition 4, passed by voters in 2024, provides dedicated funding for such coastal resilience efforts.<\/p>\n
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