Vulnerable assessment by sea level rise in San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco South Bay Area in California is home to approximately seven million people that consist of nine counties and the prosperous core area of IT technology industry in the West Coast of America, well known as Silicon Valley. Sea level rising due to Global Warming is becoming the main issue in this area. Furthermore, the extreme weather events including flash flooding are observing more frequently. Urban infrastructures are faced vulnerable at risk of long-term flooding. Sea level rise by global warming in this area is estimated that it could rise by up to 16 inches (40 cm) by mid of this century and 55 inches (140 cm) by the end of this century. By the impact of 55 inches of sea level rise, there could be 62 billion dollars loss and 270,000 people could be faced at risk of flooding. Nevertheless, urban areas are expecting to extend approximately 5,063.71 km2 by 2020 and 6,098.20 km2 by year 2050. Thus, the land use legislation need to be discussed following that the 213,000 acres that could be vulnerable to flooding by the end of this century. Adaptation strategies should be considered from various aspects including policy, empirical observations and academic approaches. In this paper, for promoting further discussions, vulnerable areas and its characteristics by flooding is assessed and the finding potential urban growth areas for urban rezoning is implemented using Geographic Information System.