The Urgency

The coast along the South Central Coast is vital—it is an ecological hotspot, an economic engine, and the heart of the region's community. Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, which poses a threat through rising sea levels, coastal erosion, and intensified drought, and wildfires.

The pressures of the built environment on the ecological function of the area are reaching a nexus point. The moment calls for a shift toward resilience thinking for the coast and prioritizing strengthening the natural ecosystems, not only for the benefit of the natural environment, but also so that they can be better equipped to protect the built environment from the impacts of climate change.

The Place

The Goleta Slough is many things: in addition to being a coastal wetland system, estuarine marine protected area, endangered species habitat, and tribal cultural site, it is also the location of critical regional and inter-regional transportation and utility infrastructure, including a national airport, an important state and local road network, a public access point for recreation, and the backyard for many residents in the City of Goleta, the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), and Santa Barbara County.

The Goleta Slough watershed encompasses approximately 48.2 square miles in Santa Barbara County and includes the drainage from creek that carry freshwater and sediment from the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains, converging into the Slough before discharging into the Pacific Ocean. The Slough is a dynamic coastal wetland ecosystem, known as a bar built estuary, that receives fresh water and sediment from multiple creeks and intermittently connects to the ocean tides through natural fluctuation controlled by stream flow, waves, and sand transport. When closed off from the ocean, the lagoon fills like a bathtub from watershed flows, often causing ponded lagoon flooding in low-lying areas. When open, it allows tidal exchange, creating a salt marsh ecosystem with a mix of saltwater, brackish, and freshwater habitats, supporting a variety of species.

For more detailed on the Slough’s ecosystem and its protections, read the report or visit the CA Department of Fish & Wildlife website.

The History

The Goleta Slough area has been shaped by both natural processes and human use for centuries.

As the original stewards of the Goleta Valley, and the Goleta Slough, the Chumash maintained the natural ecosystem for thousands of years as an extensive, tidally influenced wetland used for fishing, hunting waterfowl, harvesting plants, and as part of a broader network of coastal and inland trade and travel routes. A large Chumash village known as Helo’ was one of many important cultural sites historically located on Mescaltitlan Island and in the Slough.

Following Spanish colonization in the late 1700s, land use around the slough began to shift as ranching and agriculture expanded under the mission and rancho systems. In the 1800s, during Mexican and later American periods, grazing, farming, and early infrastructure projects led to increased sedimentation and the first alterations to creek channels and wetlands. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, drainage, diking, and filling accelerated to support agriculture, rail lines, roads, and eventually airport development, significantly reducing the size of the slough and disconnecting it from natural tidal processes. In the 1940s, the island was partially leveled during the construction of the Santa Barbara Airport, and was used to fill marsh and salt flat habitats, an act which significantly impacted the cultural resources there and permanently altered the estuarine landscape.

These changes set the stage for 20th-century recognition of the slough’s ecological value and subsequent efforts to protect and manage what remains as a critical coastal wetland.

For more detailed history on the Slough, read the report or visit the Goleta History website.

Goleta Slough Resilience Acceleration Initiative

The Goleta Slough Resilience Acceleration Initiative is an effort supported by State Coastal Conservancy and led by Resilient Cities Catalyst in partnership with Tidal Influence, Heal the Ocean, Integral Consulting Inc., and the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB)’s Ocean and Coastal Policy Center.

Initiative Goal

Resilient Cities Catalyst and partners will work with community members and experts to build resilience for the community, infrastructure, and natural ecosystem in and around the Goleta Slough.

Initiative Outcomes

• Identify local climate-driven challenges through analysis of previously established regional priorities, via existing plans and available documents

• Engage diverse stakeholders and community members to define community values and needs for the future

• Identify a pipeline of coastal resilience projects that align with local priorities and address climate challenges

Initiative Outputs

• Develop a comprehensive web resource with plans, research, events, deliverables, and relevant information related to Goleta Slough, which will include:

  • A digital repository containing a catalog of analyzed plans that inform the regions priorities, results from the plan analysis, and visuals and narrative illustrating the environmental and socio-economic dynamics of the Goleta Slough and surrounding coastal area

  • Resources from community engagement activities and a community vision that catalogs and synthesizes the critical priorities of stakeholders and residents for a more resilient future

  • A project database cataloging coastal resilience projects that align with local priorities and address climate challenges

• Using priorities identified and key outcomes desired from the plan analysis and community engagement, select at least three projects to advance towards implementation

Initiative Timeline

Goleta Slough Digital Repository

Analysis

To understand the resilience challenges and opportunities of the Slough and avoid duplicating efforts, the project team undertook a review of more than 95 existing plans and documents identified through a combination of desktop research and references from local stakeholders.

This extensive review was designed to summarize and integrate the past and current landscape of resilience planning efforts, catalog existing or planned projects that may impact the resilience of the Slough, inform a scientific and historic baseline which can be used to educate and raise awareness about the Slough ecosystem through community engagement, and ultimately act as the foundation for building an integrated resilience vision for the region.

A wide variety of plans and documents were included in the review ranging in geographic scale from site-specific to broader regional or national scale documents. Documents included foundation plans but largely focused on more recent publications in the last 30 years and included documents authored by 31 different government, nonprofit, private, and academic entities.

Using a structured analysis framework to extract and categorize information from planning documents, a team of reviewers from Resilient Cities Catalyst and Integral Consulting LLC identified shocks (acute crises), stresses (slow-burning threats), and priorities for the Goleta Slough.

Resources