New study finds rising groundwater is a major Bay Area flooding risk
As recent storms have shown just how vulnerable the Bay Area is to flooding, a new study finds that rising groundwater is a crucial contributor to the region’s flooding challenges. The study’s goal in four counties — Alameda, Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo — is huge. “It’s to make the Bay Area the most climate-resilient coastal region in the world,” said Adrian Covert, senior vice president of the Bay Area Council, a business association that helped fund the research. In partnership with local climate scientists at Pathways Climate Institute, the San Francisco Estuary Institute, UC Berkeley, regional agencies and the counties, the study took existing groundwater levels and imagined how they would push up around the lip of the bay as seas rise. The authors also created maps to provide a high-level overview of this challenge.