Imperial Beach Community Resilience Plan

What is the project and why are we doing the IB CRP?

As a low-lying coastal community that is bounded by water on three sides, the City of Imperial Beach is vulnerable to natural hazards such as coastal flooding that can disrupt the resident’s daily lives and local business operations. Flooding may also reduce City services and impact critical infrastructure. The State of California encourages cities to plan and prepare for projected increases in the impacts from coastal flooding and inundation.

The Resilient and Thrive Campaign: Outreach and engagement for the project was based on the resilient and thrive campaign. Resilience is the ability to recover quickly and to adapt to future conditions. This can mean improved emergency communications, forming closer community bonds, or planning for disasters. Planning for future conditions such as a natural disaster also provides opportunities to make Imperial Beach better. This can mean more parks, better transportation, safer streets, and clean water. The feedback received through this engagement informed the adaptation design and strategic approach to the plan focused on what the City can do to make a resilient and thriving government, community, economy, and environment. 

Phase 1 of the Imperial Beach Community Resilience Plan (IB CRP) created an adaptation management and monitoring plan/program to adequately addresses the needs of residents that currently experience flooding are projected to be substantially impacted by future coastal flooding. The adaptation strategies focused on identifying nature-based solutions where feasible to address current and future flooding impacts in four coastal segments of the City. Phase 1 of the project was funded through the National Coastal Resilience Fund grant that was funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and NOAA.  

Phase 1 Project tasks and goals:

• Data collection to gain a better understanding of the existing constraints, including surveying the coastal areas to determine property line locations/locations of existing structures;
• Illustrate various multi-benefit strategies for the shoreline, its existing infrastructure, and the surrounding natural habitat in order to adapt to projected sea level rise;
• Develop a plan with equitable policies to ensure broad utility and to build capacity to enable planning of future adaptation projects, strategies and other activities;
• Establish a baseline and monitoring program to understand how the City’s shoreline is physically changing over time;
• Create an implementation plan with a framework for when adaptation strategies could be deployed; and
• Engage the community to gain feedback on the adaptation strategies and policies

The final plan was reviewed by the City Council and approved on August 7, 2024. The final plan can be found here.  

Keep Up to Date with the Project

Over the next year, there will be numerous opportunities for the Imperial Beach community to follow the progress of this project and participate in its design and development. Please visit the Imperial Beach Community Resilience Plan Project website for updates.