Bay Sediment in Motion: A Conceptual Model of Sediment Transport in San Pablo and Suisun Bays

San Francisco Bay sits at the seaward end of California’s largest fluvial and tidal system and supports one of the most extensive tidal wetland landscapes on the West Coast. Sediment plays a central role in this system by supporting marsh and mudflat habitats, carrying nutrients and contaminants, and influencing how the estuary responds to excess nutrient loading. A clear understanding of sediment dynamics is therefore critical to the San Francisco Bay’s ecological health and resilience.

At the same time, the Bay is a highly urbanized estuary bordered by millions of residents and extensive shoreline infrastructure. Over the past two centuries, human modifications to freshwater flows, tidal exchange, floodplain processes, and ecological communities have contributed to habitat loss, broader estuarine degradation, and rigid systems for managing water and sediment in the Bay. These legacies of alteration are becoming even more consequential as climate change and sea level rise accelerate.

Sediment management is particularly important in San Pablo and Suisun Bays, where existing and planned wetland restoration efforts are projected to require more than 94 million metric tons of sediment to maintain and expand healthy bayland habitats through 2100. Managing sediment effectively in these northern subembayments is essential for strengthening shoreline resilience to climate change, informing dredging practices, and identifying opportunities for the beneficial reuse of sediment. These efforts depend on a stronger understanding of the Bay’s sediment budget and the complex transport processes operating within its subembayments.

This project translates a technical synthesis report on sediment transport in San Pablo and Suisun Bays into an ArcGIS StoryMap for a general audience. The StoryMap is intended to provide a more accessible, skimmable, and visually engaging entry point to the report for readers who may not engage with a long technical document but still need to understand its main findings and relevance. The project aims to broaden the report’s reach, strengthen its usability, and encourage deeper engagement with the full document.