California's Coastal Zone Management Program website is: http://www.coastal.ca.gov/index.html

The California Coastal Commission (CCC) website is well organized and fairly easy to use. However, finding information on a specific topic may require a lot of time looking through the many reports posted on their website.

The site provides information on beach access, water quality, and shoreline structures. Information on beach erosion and beach fill is limited. In general, there is a good overview of policy, but the website is light on substantive and quantitative information.

The Coastal Commission's meetings are streamed live on the Internet.

For the San Francisco Bay area, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) has extensive background information (legislation, reports, and policy statements) on their website.

Here's a nice summary of California's coastal management program.

The video Heroes of the Coast presents 50 years of the California coastal protection movement from direct sources--the individuals who worked successfully for passage of Prop. 20 in 1972. Prop. 20 created the California Coastal Commission, and was reauthorized by the legislature's passage of the Coastal Act in 1976, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown. The documentary also describes the process and achievements of the Coastal Commission.

The California Coastal Act and other relevant laws are accessible via the CCC website.

The website provides access to a number of CCC publications and educational resources.

The website of the California State Coastal Conservancy provides information regarding their coastal access and restoration projects.

Access to maps and photos is limited on the CCC website, although great aerial photographic coverage of the California coast is available at http://www.californiacoastline.org.

The CCC website has a Local Coastal Program Periodic Reviews / ReCAP project page. The Regional Cumulative Assessment Project (ReCAP) focuses on the local governments' implementation of their Local Coastal Programs (LCPs) and their effectiveness in carrying out the objectives of the Coastal Act. The ReCAP reports provide detailed information about issues such as beach access and shoreline structures within the limited geographic bounds of the project areas (e.g. Monterey/Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Monica/Malibu).