Abstract:
Many coastal cities choose to adapt to the future sea level rise and coastal flooding impacts, rather than to resist them. Restoring salt marshes to build coastal resilience has been accepted as a most effective adaptation strategy. Through literature studies and field surveys, this paper takes San Francisco Bay as a case study to explore the practice pathways and design methods of urban salt marsh restoration. It shows adaptive management is key to the continuous optimization and development of the three generations of marsh restoration, which helps to develop and adjust goals and methods and to cope with uncertainty flexibly. San Francisco Bay develops restoration design guidelines to accelerate restoration and create more natural marshes. Restoring the ecotones will provide migration space landwards for salt marshes to mitigate coastal squeeze. In the end, the paper reveals the enlightenment on salt marsh restoration to promote nature-based coastal defence in China’s estuarine and coastal cities.