DANA POINT, Calif. – It is a picturesque view from the shore.

Kelsey Reimer, who works at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, is participating in the Urban Tides Program as a part of University of Southern California’s Community Science Initiative.

Reimer, along with the pubic, is invited to take pictures at different times of the day with different tide levels, noting the conditions to help document sea level rise.

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“If you kind of think of it like a picture book, how it flips, that’s kind of their idea. Seeing how that sea level rise is changing over an ‘x’ period of time,” Reimer says.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the sea level has risen about eight to nine inches since 1880 and a third of that has occurred in the last two and a half decades. For coastal cities, these rising sea levels can have a big impact.

“We live in a coastal community. Especially coastal communities’ sea level rise means that there’s feet on the beach that start going away. And so that water starts coming up. In 2015 when some storms started going through we even saw Newport get a mass flooding. And there was a lot of damage that was done. Malibu, residents of Malibu who lived right on the beach had to spend $20 million for beach restoration,” Reimer says.

The economic cost of rising sea levels could extend beyond the shoreline in the future in Southern California. Dr. Raymond Sfeir is the Director at Chapman’s Anderson Center for Economic Research.

A study done by researchers at University of Colorado, Boulder and Pennsylvania State University found that homes exposed to sea level rise sell for about seven percent less than properties that aren’t exposed the same distance from the beach.

“A large percent of the economy is along the coast. Whether the east coast or the west coast and the gulf area. That’s where the strength of the U.S. economy is. So when there’s damage to the coast, there will damage to the economy as well,” De. Sfeir says.

For communities that stand to be threatened by rising sea levels, mitigating those consequences is coming into focus.

“This is very similar to what a sea wall would be. We have this breakwater here because the breakwater protects all of the boats in our harbor. So a sea wall is going to be something that’s very similar to that. It’s probably going to be set out a little farther than the breakwater is, and it’s to kind of protect an entire community,” Reimer says.

These pictures giving researchers a chance to document the potential threats and help government agencies prepare for the next steps with the click of a button.