As scientists and policy makers work on the Delta Adapts plan for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, they’re considering climate impacts on agricultural lands, wildlife and society.
The Delta Plan Interagency Implementation Committee (DPIIC) met virtually on Monday to review habitat restoration efforts, preview a tool for incorporating multiple perspectives in adaptation models, and discuss how to develop strategies that focus on appropriate risks for different parts of the California delta.
Some areas will be more vulnerable to sea level rise, while others will likely face more intense storms.
“You’re going to need different adaptation strategies,” said Andrew Schwarz, a senior member of the Delta Stewardship Council’s Delta Adapts team.
Leticia Grenier, director of the Resilient Landscapes Program at the San Francisco Estuary Institute, demonstrated a modeling tool that allows each interest—such as agriculture or fisheries—to contribute information to all of the adaptation scenarios. The tool then creates models that calculate the impacts of specific proposals on each constituency.
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CDFA Secretary Karen Ross said the tool and its holistic approach have the potential to build trust among many disparate groups.
“When you're involving so many private land owners with nonprofits and with government entities, we have to remember that kind of engagement, and building trust one project at a time, to get to the kind of landscape change that we want to see,” Ross said.
CDFA also shared early results from its series of climate change meetings with farmers and ranchers. It plans to get a report from those sessions out for public comment by the end of the month.
The DPIIC is charged with implementing the 2013 Delta Plan to manage the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta’s natural resources.
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