San Diego Region Report

San Diego County will be increasingly affected by climate change and has begun to prepare on multiple fronts for the panoply of climate related impacts to San Diego’s residents, development, infrastructure, and ecosystems. In future decades, San Diego County and adjacent regions will be confronted with, among others, increasingly warmer average temperatures, more frequent and likely more intense heat waves, more intense droughts, occasionally increased heavy rainfall events and floods, continuing Santa Ana winds and wildfire threats. The impacts will play out in different ways across the complex terrain and differing climates within San Diego County. Communities along San Diego County’s 70 miles of coastline are planning for substantial sea level rise, which will affect beaches, sea cliffs, real estate, infrastructure and other amenities. The region has many unique characteristics, such as narrow beaches backed by sea cliffs, large percentage of conserved lands, highly populated urban and sub-urban development, small farm dominated agriculture, and large solar power production; these characteristics, amongst others, all determine vulnerabilities to climate changes and related adaptation measures.