Excerpt:
Surfing generates an estimated $200 million per year in Santa Cruz each year, but that revenue could be at risk…
In the summer of 1885, three teenage Hawaiian princes visiting Santa Cruz dragged hand-hewn, 17-foot redwood boards — each weighing more than 200 pounds — across the sand at Main Beach. Riding waves at the mouth of the San Lorenzo River, they introduced surfing to the mainland United States, an event that would help shape Santa Cruz’s coastal identity for generations.
The cultural phenomenon they helped launch now generates nearly $200 million a year in Santa Cruz, according to a landmark report released in September by the nonprofit Save the Waves Coalition. But that economic engine, the authors warn, is increasingly at risk — not only from climate change and sea level rise, but from how policymakers respond to them.
Those kinds of decisions have already reshaped the shoreline, including the historic surf break where the princes first surfed the California coast. In the 1960s, sand was dredged there to begin construction of the Santa Cruz Harbor, permanently altering how waves formed at the river mouth.
The report argues that decisions made along the coast in the coming years could determine whether Santa Cruz’s remaining surf breaks endure. It urges city and county leaders to factor surfing’s economic and cultural value into long-term coastal planning, and calls for surf breaks to be made more welcoming to historically marginalized groups, ensuring broader access to the sport’s benefits.
“Surfing is not just a hobby,” said Shaun Burns, reserves network coordinator for Save the Waves, during a presentation to Santa Cruz City Council on Oct. 28. “It has value economically and culturally here in Santa Cruz and it needs to be prioritized in planning.”
Putting a dollar figure on surfing’s impact is no simple task.
To estimate direct revenue, coastal economist Dave Anning of Integral Consulting tallied income from surf-related businesses, including apparel, surf lessons, and the rental and repair of surf equipment. Those industries alone generate about $150.2 million annually, the report found.
More challenging was estimating spending tied to surf trips themselves, such as fuel and meals purchased by visiting surfers. Using anonymized cell phone location data collected at surf breaks by the analytics company Placer.ai, the report estimated that Santa Cruz hosted about 783,000 surf trips in 2024, generating an additional $44.5 million in indirect economic activity.
To measure what could be lost as surf conditions decline, the report assessed the “surfability” of 31 local breaks, defined as the percentage of daylight hours when wave conditions are rideable. Dave Revell, a coastal geomorphologist with Integral Consulting and a co-author of the report, analyzed how rising sea levels could change the way waves break, reducing the time surfers are able to ride them.
The findings were stark: One foot of sea level rise would reduce surfability across Santa Cruz by 29%, cutting annual surf-related revenue by an estimated $12.8 million…
