San Francisco Bay Estuarine-Upland Transition Zone w/ 167cm of Sea Level Rise

This dataset was developed to assist users to account for the landward migration of transitional habitats in response to projected sea level rise.The dataset is a component of a larger Decision Support System (DSS), which includes a GIS dataset of (current) transition zone polygons  ranked according to their restoration potential as well as a technical document providing a functional definition for transition zones which was used to identify the metrics of habitat function used for ranking restoration potential.  

Transition zone distributions are based on modeled tidal elevations. We mapped the distributions for current, and the two sea level rise scenarios (61cm and 167cm - high NRC 2050 and 2100), by combining (a) high resolution LIDAR (2010), (b) interpolated surfaces of Mean HIgh High Water (MHHW), and (c) a trend surface of the difference between MHHW and the Highest Observed Water Level (HOWL) across the SF estuary, The first two datasets were combined to create surface of elevation in relation to MHHW. The last trend surface was developed to account for the tidal variability in the upper boundary that occurs between the north and south bays. Transition zone tidal elevations were defined as from .31 meters above MHHW to HOWL + .27 meters.

Please contact Brian Fulfrost (bfaconsult@gmail.com) for more details.All supporting materials (including google eath versions of datasets) can be found at http://climate.calcommons.org/dataset/san-francisco-bay-estuarine-terrestrial-transitional-zone-decision-support-system. The restoratin potential of curent transion zone polygons can also be found on Data Basin at https://databasin.org/datasets/862941bd452d456caa264619c8ad791f