Gary Griggs

Short- and Long-Term Risks of Back Beach Development along the California Coast

California’s beaches naturally narrowed in winter and widened in summer. From the mid-1940s to 1978, a cooler Pacific Decadal Oscillation and milder El Niño events resulted in little coastal storm damage. During this period, California’s population grew rapidly, and once-wide beaches were developed with homes, businesses, and infrastructure. In recent decades, however, extreme events—large waves coinciding with high tides, often during major El Niños—have repeatedly damaged shoreline development. Sand loss and shifting wave patterns have worsened the impacts, and rising sea levels will only add to future challenges. Solutions like coastal armor and beach nourishment are costly and temporary. Climate change is real, happening now, and unavoidable. While homeowners resist managed retreat, failing to plan means retreat will happen unmanaged. Each vulnerable coastal community must assess risks and plan for a future where maintaining these areas is no longer feasible.

Beach Nourishment: A Critical Look

Beach nourishment has been the primary response to shoreline recession along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts for a century, with $15.7 billion spent on 1.2 billion m³ of sand for 475 communities, mostly in New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Florida. Costs, sand volumes, and replenishment frequency have risen, with some North Carolina beaches nourished over 20 times. While beneficial for recreation and property protection, the short lifespan of nourished beaches, ongoing costs, environmental impacts, land subsidence, extreme events, and rising sea levels suggest federal funding should end, shifting focus to long-term retreat from the shoreline.

The past, present, and future of Seacliff State Beach: Adapting to long-term sea level rise on California’s Central Coast 

In a display of the increasingly destructive impact of climate change and sea level rise, in January 2023 unusually severe storms hit California’s west coast and devastated the infrastructure at Monterey Bay’s Seacliff State Beach. Additional severe storms in December 2023 compounded the damage. This article frames the potential application of a new approach for recovery planning along the California coast by examining historical failures, accelerating threats, and the economic and societal factors that create obstacles to long-term success at places such as Seacliff. While each situation differs, the Seacliff State Beach challenge is representative of an ever-widening dilemma faced by many seaside communities. The possibilities for coastal adaptation at Seacliff, based in part on California’s innovative state policies, provide an opportunity to consider sustainable and equitable planning approaches for local communities, government, business, and ultimately future generations.

The California Coast and Living Shorelines—A Critical Look

California and most other coastlines around the world are being impacted by both long- term sea-level rise and short-term extreme events. Due to California’s long and intensively developed coastline, it is an important area for evaluating responses to these challenges. The predominant historic approach to coastal erosion in California and globally has been the construction of hard coastal armoring such as seawalls and rock revetments. The concept of living shorelines—defined as using natural elements like plants, sand, or rocks to stabilize the coastline—has been widely proposed as a soft or green response to coastal erosion and flooding. However, these approaches have very limited application in high-energy environments such as California’s 1100-mile-long outer coast and are not realistic solutions for protection from wave attack at high tides or long-term sea-level rise. Each of the state’s coastal communities need to identify their most vulnerable areas, develop adaptation plans, and plan eventual relocation strategies in response to an accelerating sea-level rise.

Can We Make Coastal Communities Resilient to Sea-Level Rise?

“Resilient” is a term that has gotten increasingly widespread usage in recent years as a solution or response for coastal communities to the well-documented global rise in sea level. The message that is usually conveyed seems to be that if we can make coastal communities resilient, everything will be fine and we will have solved the challenge of how to adapt to a rising sea. The federal government and some coastal state government agencies are providing grant money to encourage coastal communities to develop plans to become more resilient. This is an appropriate time to ask what would a resilient coastal community look like and can we actually make a community resilient to future sea-level rise, and if so, for how long?

Documenting a Century of Coastline Change along Central California and Associated Challenges: From the Qualitative to the Quantitative

Wave erosion has been steadily moving coastal cliffs and bluffs landward for centuries. However, climate change and rising sea levels are now accelerating this process worldwide. Studying and projecting cliff erosion is more complex than analyzing changes along sandy beaches due to the unique challenges posed by rocky coastlines. This research focused on coastal erosion along West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz, California. It examined geological history, cliff shapes, and past retreat rates to better understand coastline changes. Challenges in analyzing cliff retreat include complex cliff shapes, undercutting, and cave formation, which add uncertainty to measurements. Addressing these uncertainties is crucial for accurately predicting future erosion rates and creating effective plans to manage the impacts of a changing coastline in this densely populated area.

California Catastrophes: The Natural Disaster History of the Golden State

This comprehensive account of California’s numerous and perilous natural disasters explores how a unique combination of forces has affected Californians throughout the state's history and carries a sobering message about our short disaster memories.

California has more natural hazards per square mile than any other state, but this hasn’t deterred people from moving here. Entire towns and regions frequently contend with destruction caused by active faults, earthquakes, and a myriad of other dangers, whether floods, landslides and debris flows, sea-level rise and coastal erosion, or climate change (which brings more drought, fires, and winter rainfall). As Gary Griggs demonstrates in California Catastrophes, few years go by without a disaster of some kind, and residents often rebuild in the same locations that were just destroyed.

Considering our current climate crisis and increasing environmental inequalities, the stakes are ever higher. This book dives into the history of the state’s vulnerability to natural hazards, why and where these events occur, and how Californians can better prepare going forward. A mix of photographs and maps both historical and contemporary orients readers within the state’s sprawling landscapes and provides glimpses of some of the geologic risks in each region. With the final chapter, Griggs issues a call to action and challenges readers to envision a safer, more equitable, and sustainable future.

The Ominous Ocean: Rogue Waves, Rip Currents and Other Dangers Along the Shoreline and in the Sea

The oceans cover 71% of the planet and pose a myriad of hazards to everyone from blue-water sailors to the casual beachcomber. From rip currents to rogue waves, the possibilities for some water-borne calamity seem endless, but in most cases a deadly outcome can be avoided or at least mitigated by having a better understanding of the risks involved. This book presents cautionary tales of the most dangerous aspects of oceans encounters, including hazardous sea life such as sharks and rays, the power of waves and high seas that can engulf an entire fleet of naval vessels. In each case the author provides actual examples of various ocean phenomena and the people who either survive or succumb to them, from competitive big-wave surfers to the passengers and crew of the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2, severely damaged by a 95-foot wave that seemed to come out of nowhere in the middle of the night. The author also addresses several well-known maritime disasters and their causes, as well as such phenomena as the so-called Bermuda Triangle. Above all, The Ominous Oceans seeks to provide a better understanding of the perilous seas, so that we will be better prepared before taking that swim or venturing off to places unknown. (2022)

Between Paradise and Peril: The Natural Disaster History of the Monterey Bay Region

The Monterey Bay Region seems to have it all—sandy beaches, sunshine, the redwoods and rivers—paradise for most of us. This scenic landscape that has drawn people here for hundreds of years owes its origins to the underlying geology and climate, and both of these are somewhat unpredictable. Earthquakes and landslides, floods and droughts, El Niños and seacliff erosion all take place more frequently than we care to remember. Yet they are a fundamental part of this landscape we inhabit and that we can expect to experience for as long as we have an Earth. (2018)

Coasts in Crisis: A Global Challenge

Coastal regions around the world have become increasingly crowded, intensively developed, and severely exploited. Hundreds of millions of people living in these low-lying areas are subject to short-term coastal hazards such as cyclones, hurricanes, and destruction due to El Niño, and are also exposed to the long-term threat of global sea-level rise. These massive concentrations of people expose often-fragile coastal environments to the runoff and pollution from municipal, industrial, and agricultural sources as well as the impacts of resource exploitation and a wide range of other human impacts. Can environmental impacts be reduced or mitigated and can coastal regions adapt to natural hazards? 

Coasts in Crisis is a comprehensive assessment of the impacts that the human population is having on the coastal zone globally and the diverse ways in which coastal hazards impact human settlement and development. Gary Griggs provides a concise overview of the individual hazards, risks, and issues threatening the coastal zone. (2017)

California Coast from the Air: Images of a Changing Landscape

In a state identified with change, California's 1,100-mile coastline lives up to the reputation. Storm waves attack sea cliffs, earthquakes trigger landslides, and ocean waves relentlessly move sand. Over the past century, humans have changed the coast too, particularly in Southern California, where some stretches of coastline have been completely altered. 

Thanks to the California Coastal Records Project, the brainchild of Kenneth and Gabrielle Adelman, we now have an aerial photographic record of the entire coastline, from the redwood forests near the Oregon border to the urbanized shoreline of San Diego Bay. California Coast from the Air features 150 of the best photographs from this scientifically valuable yet truly artistic collection of more than 80,000 images. (2014)

Introduction to California’s Beaches and Coast

From sunny beaches where thousands escape the summer's heat to wild and isolated rocky cliffs, California boasts one of the most spectacular and diverse shorelines in the world. Accompanied by numerous color photographs, diagrams, and maps, this guide explains why California's Pacific Coast looks and works the way it does. Gary Griggs explores the dynamic forces that have created beaches and the coastline through lively discussions of tectonics, the formation of waves, rain and wind, changing climates and sea levels, human impacts, and coastal erosion. (2010)

Santa Cruz Coast

The scenic coastline of northern Monterey Bay has enthralled residents and visitors alike for well over a century. Yet storms and relentless waves over time have taken their toll, devouring shorelines, washing away beaches, collapsing cliffs, and battering oceanfront structures. (2006)

Living with the Changing California Coast

Crowded into the beautiful, narrow strip at the edge of the ocean, the large number of people who live near California's dynamic coastline often have little awareness of the hazards-waves, tides, wind, storms, rain, and runoff-that erode and impact the coast and claim property on a regular basis. This up-to-date, authoritative, and easy-to-use book, a geological profile of the California coast from Mexico to the Oregon border, describes the landforms and processes that shape the coastline and beaches, documents how erosion has affected development, and discusses the options that are available for dealing with coastal hazards and geologic instability. 

A completely revised and updated edition of Living with the California Coast (1985), this book features hundreds of new photographs and the latest data on human activity on the coast, on climate change, on rising seas levels, and on coastal erosion and protection. With its dramatic photographs and mile-by-mile maps, Living with the Changing California Coast is an essential resource for those intending to buy or build along the coast, those who need specific information about various coastal regions, and those who are seeking information about how this remarkable coastline has evolved. (2005)

Our Ocean Backyard: Collected Essays 1
Our Ocean Backyard: Collected Essays 2
Our Ocean Backyard: Collected Essays 3

For the three billion people on Earth who live in coastal regions, the ocean is figuratively, if not literally, “our backyard.” Many of us have sought out ocean areas in which to live, work, or vacation. The oceans enrich our lives in countless ways, but our interactions with them have not always been positive. In April 2008, Gary Griggs, a coastal geologist and oceanographer who has studied the oceans for over forty-six years and is known for making science understandable, enjoyable, and accessible to non-scientists, was asked to write a bi-weekly column, Our Ocean Backyard for the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Santa Cruz sits smack on the ocean. California is in many ways defined by its coast, so it isn't surprising that so many people are drawn towards our ocean edge. Whether it is our weather and climate, or any number of recreational pursuits: fishing, surfing, sailing, jogging or walking, or just observing and exploring, the ocean provides something for all of us. In turn, engaging in each of these different pursuits generates a healthy curiosity—historical, geological, biological—as does simply living, day-to-day, in a community facing the sea. 

These collection of columns explore several of these curious ocean questions. Should we worry about tsunamis here on the central coast? How did Yellow Bank Beach, Davenport Landing, Greyhound Rock, Castle Beach and Black Point get their names? Gary explains why the sea behaves as it does, while bringing our coastal history and landscape into perspective. Our climate is changing and the ocean is responding. Many of us are eager to learn more about our oceans and coast, particularly the science behind it all, but we don't often understand that science very well. And to make matters worse, many scientists who write about their particular specialized area, don't do so in way that is understandable or relevant to the non-scientist. Gary’s stories, which draw upon our rich history of ocean exploration and discovery, are written for anyone with an interest in the oceans—not just in Monterey Bay or the central coast—and shed much needed light on what we can expect in the years and decades to come. Gary writes not to advocate, but rather to illuminate. His goal is always to explain the science, which in turn enhances our enjoyment of this beautiful resource, and also empowers us to make considered, informed decisions—whether it is in our daily lives, or in the voting booth.

Geologic Hazards, Resources, and Environmental Planning

(1983)

The earth and land use planning

(1977)