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San Francisco County Climate Resilience

by | Dec 26, 2025

San Francisco County is a peninsula with seven hills, surrounded by the bayshore and Pacific Ocean on three sides.  By land all roads lead south, in other directions you must cross a bridge to leave San Francisco. On the eastern waterfront the aging seawall under the Embarcadero needs an update to address sea level rise and protect downtown buildings and transportation infrastructure. On the northwest shore, strong tides into and out of the Golden Gate increase shoreline erosion of the parks, marinas and tourist wharves lining the waterfront. On the Pacific Shore, all that protects the single family homes of the Sunset and Richmond districts from increasingly powerful waves and rising seas is Ocean Beach and the Great Highway. The current population of the City of San Francisco is wealthy and techy, while working class communities struggle to battle gentrification around the edges in Bayview, Brisbane and Pacifica. This small city with a small population nonetheless remains the heart of the Bay Area region.

“Things are never as bleak as they seem because we have the capacity to change and inspire change in others.”

Tyrone Jue
Director
SF Department of Environment

Tyrone Jue photo.
Park in San Francisco with dog walker

Initiatives

  • ClimateSF: Hub for San Francisco planning and funding efforts focused on climate adaptation, mitigation, and resilience. 
  • Resilient SF: San Francisco Office of Resilience and Capital Planning program to address six buckets of issues: earthquakes, climate change, sea level rise, infrastructure, social inequity, and unaffordability. 
  • Climate Equity Hub: City program that installs free heat pump water heaters to residents of environmentally disadvantaged communities that have historically faced the worst pollution. 
  • Heat and Air Quality Resilience Project: Office of Resilience and Capital Planning effort to increase the city’s capacity and funding to make infrastructure better equipped to handle fire and heat hazards. 
  • San Francisco Floodplain Management Program: Requiring new construction in designated flood zones to be protected from storms and sea level rise. 
  • Waterfront Resilience Program: Port of San Francisco plan to adapt the city’s shoreline to 3 to 7 feet of sea level rise expected by 2100. 
  • Concrete Building Safety Program: Retrofitting older concrete buildings to protect the lives and safety of residents in the event of an earthquake 
  • EV Charge SF: Subsidies for installing electric vehicle charging stations at homes and businesses. 

Resources 

Government

For disaster preparedness and alerts go to our Disaster Prep hub listing. 

    Key Contacts

    • Tyrone Jue, SF Environment Director, (415) 355-3700
    • Jennifer Callewaert, Acting Director of Environmental Health, 415-252-3800
    • Brian Strong, Chief Resilience Officer, cpp@sfgov.org 
    • Eric Vaughan, ClimateSF Program Manager 
    • David Beaupre: Port of San Francisco Deputy Director of Planning and Environment 
    • Danielle Ngo: City of San Francisco Senior Planner for Resilience + Sustainability, (628) 652-7591

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