In the face of rapidly rising sea levels caused by climate change, there is an emerging consensus among researchers that transformations are necessary to avoid the most catastrophic of losses. Cities, regions and states are beginning to develop vulnerability assessments and create adaptation plans to address this long-term threat. However, there is no clear way to measure adaptation planning success or comparatively evaluate different strategies. Combining socially relevant knowledge with physical planning practice has the potential to provide deep insights and lead to necessary transformations. This dissertation attempts to disrupt current practice and shift away from path dependencies that lead to the negative cycle of building ever higher walls to protect brittle urban systems. Specifically, this dissertation presents new approaches to evaluating sea level rise adaptation strategies and the key insights gleaned from applying these approaches it the San Francisco Bay and coastal California.

Chapter 1 provides a general overview of the themes covered in this disseration. Chapter 2 of this dissertation is a systematic literature review of over 30 publications in the academic literature on transformational adaptation. Next in Chapter 3, the dissertation uniquely combines two evaluation approaches to understand if seven current physical proposals for sea level rise in the San Francisco Bay are showing signs of a transformation in physical planning. Then in Chapter 4, the dissertation investigates the physical, economic, and regulatory insights that a cost estimate for coastal protective infrastructure (including earthen levees, concrete walls, and wetlands) can reveal. It analyzes 169,000 30-m line segments of linear shore structures and predicts the costs of adaptation under eight different sea level rise scenarios. In Chapter 5, the dissertation applies a newly developed measurement system called the “Regional Planning Fingerprint” to establish regional baselines for the current status of sea level rise adaptation planning. Through each chapter the dissertation establishes new evaluation approaches and associated tools to understand and compare sea level rise strategies and set baselines to measure future progress.

This dissertation helps to advance existing knowledge of changing landscapes, regional adaptive capacity, and climate adaptation planning, particularly as they relate to the urban ecology and environmental planning fields. Through the analysis in Chapter 3, I find clear evidence of localized transformations in the use of dynamic landforms as a design strategy. In Chapter 4, I gained new knowledge that builds the case that ecologically sensitive sites could be part of future sea level rise adaptation solutions. In Chapter 5, I find that each region is truly unique and by developing localized baseline data, regions can track their own progress toward transformational adaptation.

I submit that the most important contributions of this dissertation are the unique assessment approaches I developed for three different scales—region, city, and site—and the critical insights gained through applying these approaches. One crucial insight gained through this work is the importance of understanding and designing for deeply interconnected places. Another theme that emerged from this research is that key triggers for action are lacking. Chapter 6 fleshes out these insights and presents a research agenda at the critical intersection of climate change adaptation, urban ecology, and environmental planning.