SOS! Let’s find ways to Save Our Sand now!
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investigate

creative solutions that have been studied and implemented in other coastal cities around the world. Learn about the issues, and the scientific options for coastal management.

learn the issues

join

a local grassroots group. Participate in their events, volunteer, donate and learn about their efforts and resources to save our California sand. Get involved now.

meet groups
 

October 12 @ 4pm PDT

Learn About An Exciting Upcoming Event!

October 12 @ 4pm PDT ✺ Learn About An Exciting Upcoming Event! ✺

Instead, let’s work together to achieve responsible, long-lasting answers state wide.

 

Explore CURRENT issues, projects and research

It is time to consider a wider variety of coastal management and engineering options — such as multi-benefit retention structures —that have proven to minimize erosion and show promise in creating long-term, healthy, living beaches and reefs. We have built coastal cities housing tens of millions of people that have impeded the natural processes of replenishing beaches with sand. We all play a role in shaping and defining our future — to simply retreat and allow the sea to destroy highways, businesses, homes, and railroads is a wasteful and expensive path to choose. Mobilized with the latest scientific knowledge, learning from others, and having the determination to thoughtfully resolve issues, we have the potential to make a difference and rebuild our beaches. There are many options, some combinations of which have yet to be explored thoroughly. We cannot wait. We need to start now. As our work begins, we will learn together.

As the coast has changed, so too should our approaches

 
Oceanside secures $1.835 million grant from California Coastal Commission
— PublicCEO, April 2025
Read About the Commission's Support
RE:BEACH, a coastal resilience competition brought together design teams from around the world to develop innovative sand retention pilot projects for the city of Oceanside.
— KPBS, Tania Thorne, August 2023
Learn About the Global Competition
... two‑thirds of Southern California beaches could erode completely by 2100.

Beneath ‘layers of bureaucracy’ ... the coast is washing away.
— Voice of OC, March 2023
Learn about the erosion crisis

While there is no silver bullet in strengthening our coast against further erosion, I believe we should consider every option that can help.
— CA Sen. Patricia Bates calls on federal & state agencies for support, CBS8, August 2019
Read why senator calls for support
... if we act now and take on mitigation, we can limit the results of climate change... [The change could become] really severe and catastrophic in the future, with a lot of loss of life and money, if we don’t act.
— Professor Lisa Levin, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, The San Diego Union-Tribune, October 2019
Read about San Diego's unique edge
The world’s coastal cities are... fighting back. A growing number... are making massive investments in technical solutions to keep seas at bay... The lesson from the most successful cities is that a combination of approaches is essential.
— Robert Muggah, World Economic Forum, January 2019
Read how cities worldwide are managing coastal erosion

...coastal science [is] changing rapidly... ‘We’re bringing together different disciplines to these fairly complicated challenges we are facing on the coast...’
— Catherine Kozak speaks with experts from the Coastal Studies Institute, Coastal Review Online, November 2019
Rise to the challenges
With global predictions of increased growth in coastal populations, the trends of coastal hardening and expansion of coastal cities is expected to further increase. Moreover, in light of processes related to global climate change, coastlines are facing growing threats related to sea-level rise... calling for immediate revision of current coastal defense measures.
— Evaluation study of ecologically active cement structures in the Red Sea & Mediterranean Sea, Shimrit Perkol-Finkel & Ido Sella, ECOncrete, Israel, January 2014
Learn about inspiring results

What can we do now about COASTAL EROSION?

START BY WATCHING THIS ENCOURAGING VIDEO:


 

NORTH COUNTY, SAN DIEGO HAS THE OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME A GLOBAL MODEL OF COASTAL RESILIENCE

 

Oceanside City’s Coastal Protection Project

The RE:BEACH coastal resilience competition’s winning, nature-based design was unanimously approved by the Oceanside City Council on January 31, 2024.

Read about the coastal project

MORE INFORMATION TO CONSIDER

Artificial reefs protect US shorelines

“Artificial, human-made reefs have been deployed around the country to enhance and protect coastlines. The Department of Defense is working to deploy them in waters off its coastal military bases with its ‘Reefense’ project.”

PBS News Weekend, April 2025

Coastal Erosion Viewer

Explore the above interactive viewer, presented by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and see detailed results from the “first study to analyze California’s coastal cliff retreat statewide”.

Steve Koppes, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, describes the study, August 2022

replenishing SANDBANKs

The Global Center on Adaptation explains how “an experiment in the Netherlands could change the way we tackle coastal erosion”. Read their story about the innovative Sand Motor, and how “other countries have taken note.”

Global Center On Adaptation, article by Angela Wipperman, December 2020


concrete solutions

The Switchers Community explains how a pioneering group has proven that “slight modifications to concrete have the potential to… [provide] enhanced ecosystem services… elevated water quality, increased operational life span, structural stability, and absorption of hydrodynamic forces.” November 2017.

Offering Concrete Solutions for Battered Coastlines, and Ecologically Active Concrete, Study Results

Hawaii Beach Restoration

This 1984 book by Gerald G. Kuhn and Francis P. Shepard is currently available to read online": University of California Press E-Book, © 1984


We invite YOU
and all who are interested

— in new ideas, plans, and actions —

 

to reach out, yell about it, encourage others to join in, and create new beaches where the old ones have gone by. Let’s urge government agencies to act now, and to develop a comprehensive, long-term coastal protection plan before it is too late.

 
Join A Group Now

CA Coastal Commission

California
State parks

US Climate Resilience

Meet local groups that bring people together to save our beaches, and bring back the natural ecosystems and wildlife that are fast disappearing.

 

California Resilience partnership

The California Resilience Partnership (CRP) is a statewide, multimillion-dollar public-philanthropic effort to support collaboration on statewide priorities. Launched with two pilot regions in 2021, the program plans to expand over the coming years to new regions across the State. If you are a funder, public sector representative, or non-profit interested in learning more about potential partnerships in future regions, please reach out.

reach out to the California Resilience Partnership
We are excited to participate in the California Resilience Partnership, to mobilize new funding and catalyze innovative projects that work with nature to reduce our region’s vulnerability to the most harmful impacts of climate change.
— Dr. Emily Young, Executive Director of The Nonprofit Institute at the University of San Diego and Founding Advisor to SDRCC, 3BL CSRwire, February 2021

save oceanside sand

Save Oceanside Sand is a local group of advocates for sustainable sandy beaches in Oceanside, California. Working with local, regional, state, and federal authorities, they seek scientific solutions that will protect and preserve beaches from coastal erosion and winter storms; solutions that consider environmental issues, safe access, migrating sand, and wave dynamics. Support from local communities, businesses, and residents is essential. See how you can help.

Explore Save Oceanside Sand
I’ve watched the sand be pumped back on the beach... and a month later it’s gone again.
— Vicki Casper, Oceanside resident, Local Group Fights for Jetties to Save Beaches, ABC 10 NEWS, June 2019

 

Save Oceanside Sand works with many groups, including collaborative relationships with Save Our Beaches San Clemente and Save West Cliff. These citizen groups advocate for shoreline improvements, respectively in San Clemente and Santa Cruz. By building a coalition of advocacy groups throughout the region and state, Save Oceanside Sand aims to align and widen efforts. Please visit the above links to learn more about local community groups demanding better solutions for their shoreline issues.

 
Discover more about nature-based solutions