'The Living Shoreline Project' from the Art x Climate Gallery

Released in 2023, the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) includes an Art × Climate gallery. The gallery collection features the work of 92 artists, selected from more than 800 submissions. This work may only be reproduced or re-used in connection with the Fifth National Climate Assessment. Any other use must be negotiated with the author.

Plans for addressing climate change not only include actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Some planners are placing growing emphasis on adaptation: reducing risks from today’s climate conditions and preparation for future impacts. NCA5’s Adaptation chapter explains that activities are occurring across the United States although many have so far been small in scale and incremental in approach.

Linda Gass completed this installation over 2017-2023 using ornamental grass and wood chip mulch. This is the artist’s statement: 

The meandering line of dark green plants is a living art installation that marks the historical shoreline of San Francisco Bay at Cooley Landing, a former landfill site in East Palo Alto, CA. From 1932 to 1960, the wetlands were filled by a garbage dump, creating an artificial peninsula. Using maps from 1857 and present-day satellite images, the artist located the historical shoreline. Youth and adult volunteers joined her to plant a California native plant, Juncus patens, along this placement.

Today, the site has been reclaimed and turned into a park where native vegetation is being returned to the area to help manage the effects of rising sea levels. Similar work is occurring at sites all around San Francisco Bay.