Overview

Flood control managers and regulatory agencies are calling for a new overall approach for channel management with the recognition of environmental impacts associated with current flood risk management activities, the high cost of maintaining aging infrastructure, the challenges associated with maintaining flood conveyance in the face of a rising sea level, and the high value of dredged sediment.

Flood Control 2.0 is an innovative regional project that seeks to integrate habitat improvement and flood risk management at the Bay interface. The project focuses on helping flood control agencies and their partners create landscape designs that promote improved sediment transport through flood control channels, improved flood conveyance, and the restoration and creation of resilient bayland habitats. In addition, the project focuses on beneficial reuse options for dredged sediment from highly constrained flood control channels with limited restoration opportunities. Through a series of coordinated technical, economic, and regulatory analyses, Flood Control 2.0 addresses some of the major elements associated with multi-benefit channel design and management at the Bay interface and will provide critical information that can be used to develop long-term solutions that benefit people and habitats.

The project findings have been synthesized into this online “toolbox.” The toolbox includes channel classifications and relevant management concepts (e.g., creek-bayland connection, beneficial reuse of sediment), multi-benefit landscape “visions” at the Bay interface for selected channels, a “marketplace” for baylands restoration practitioners to find available dredged sediment (SediMatch), regulatory guidance documents with case studies for the regulatory issues associated with flood control project elements (e.g., impacts to existing wetlands), and benefit-cost analyses of current flood management measures and proposed multi-benefit measures. In combination with other regional plans (e.g., Baylands Ecosystem Habitat Goals Science Update), this project provides information to flood control managers and the restoration community for planning sustainable, long-term, multi-benefit redesign projects given landscape, regulatory, and economic challenges.

Flood Control 2.0 was funded by the San Francisco Bay Water Quality Improvement Fund, EPA Region IX.