Week 7: Data and Another Threat?

Hi guys and welcome back to week 7 of my blog. This week I have been analyzing a few articles about the impact of carbon emissions and global warming due to the negative influence of pollution in the bay area, which is enhanced by rising groundwater.

A key problem that I have observed this week is the impact of rising ground water, which may be as detrimental or even more than coastal flooding. As sea level rises, coastal groundwater will also rise in many urban environments. This is due to denser saltwater moving inland beneath our soil, which pushes the layer of groundwater above it. A report from the ESS open archive states that more than 5200 state and federally-managed contaminated sites are at risk. Our soils will become even more contaminated, physically changing the chemical & biological conditions that impact the transport of current contaminants. This issue is extremely major due to the fact that many of these cities are already placed under high levels of pollution, such as East Palo Alto, San Jose, West Oakland, Richmond, and San Francisco.

Bay Area Hazardous Sites and 2100 Sea Level Rise

Climate change will undoubtedly persist, and its rate is dependent on the rate at which we continue to burn fossil fuels. Currently, around 326 sites are vulnerable to groundwater depth/flow direction changes because of sea level rise. This includes 18.1 million hectares of contaminated land. But what exactly are these sites? These sites can range from former military bases and chemical factories to gas stations and dry cleaners. Contamination from these industries affect the soil with a plethora of threats, such as, “heavy metals, chemicals, pesticides and herbicides, and radioisotopes.

The reason why these components in the soil pose such a large threat is that they will become even more activated from rising groundwater and affect our neighborhoods. As they are carried into nearby neighborhoods, these compounds can penetrate our sewer pipes and drain systems, whether through gaseous form or physical, and contaminate our homes, workplaces, and schools.

As well as observing the impacts of groundwater, I will provide some of my own data. Over the past few weeks, I have collected some of the inching or rising seawater on the coast of San Francisco at my site. Noting the distance from the shore, I measured 62’7’’ from the shore to coastline on my first day. After that, I measured 60’3’’ on my second week, 58’5’’ on the third, 55’4’’ on the fouth, and 52’4’’ on the last.’ Noticing the trends, it is obvious the distance has been closing in, and I have been making sure to go at the same time. Recently, the weather has become increasingly warmer and rainfall has been prominent. We can infer that this may be the most direct cause to see these trends as I am not measuring over the course of a longer time, such as years.

Using data from flood maps based on NOAA-supplied lidar elevation data, we can see that the relative max tide level has increased slightly, towards the 7 ft mark instead of the usual 6 ft. Below, I am comparing some of the days more recently that I observed with the data I looked at previously.

Sources: https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/rising-groundwater-threatens-thousands-toxic-sites-bay-area#:~:text=A%20new%20report%20finds%20that,managed%20contaminated%20sites%20at%20risk.

https://www.kqed.org/science/1983106/map-more-than-5000-toxic-sites-along-sf-bay-are-threatened-by-rising-groundwater-new-study-finds

https://coastalcare.org/2023/06/the-bay-area-faces-an-imminent-threat-from-sea-level-rise-but-its-different-from-what-you-think-san-francisco-chronicle/