80203.
For purposes of this division, the following definitions apply:(a) “Committee” means the Wildfire Prevention, Safe Drinking Water, Drought Preparation, and Flood Protection Finance Committee created pursuant to Section 80402.
(b) “Community access” means engagement programs, technical assistance, or facilities that maximize safe and equitable physical admittance, especially for low-income communities, to natural or cultural resources, community education, or recreational amenities and includes transportation, physical activity programming, education, and culturally relevant communication related to water, parks, climate, coastal protection, and other outdoor pursuits.
(c) “Conservation actions on private lands” means projects with willing landowners that involve the adaptive management or protection of natural resources in response to changing climate conditions and threats to habitat and wildlife. These projects result in habitat conditions on private lands that, when necessary to be managed dynamically over time, contribute to the long-term health and resiliency of vital ecosystems, ecosystem services, and enhance fish and wildlife populations.
(d) “Disadvantaged community” means a community with a median household income of less than 80 percent of the area average.
(e) “Economically distressed area” means a municipality with a population of 20,000 persons or less, a rural county, or a reasonably isolated and divisible segment of a larger municipality where the segment of the population is 20,000 persons or less, with an annual median household income that is less than 85 percent of the statewide median household income, and with one or more of the following conditions, as determined by the Natural Resources Agency:
(1) Financial hardship.
(2) An unemployment rate at least 2 percent higher than the statewide average.
(3) Low population density.
(f) “Extremely low income household” has the same meaning as set forth in Section 50106 of the Health and Safety Code.
(g) “Fire hardening” means all costs, including costs of design, preparation, and inspection, incurred in the following:
(1) Replacing or installing any of the following:
(A) Ember-resistant vents.
(B) Fire-resistant roofing.
(C) Fire-resistant siding.
(D) Fire-resistant eaves.
(E) Fire-resistant soffits.
(F) Fire-resistant windows.
(G) Other fire hardening activities or investments approved by the State Fire Marshal.
(2) Tree removal and trimming within 100 feet of an eligible building.
(h) “Fund” means the Wildfire Prevention, Safe Drinking Water, Drought Preparation, and Flood Protection Fund created pursuant to Section 80214.
(i) “Local coastal program” has the same meaning as in Section 30108.6.
(j) “Natural infrastructure” means using natural ecological systems or processes to reduce vulnerability to climate change-related hazards or other related climate change effects while increasing the long-term adaptive capacity of coastal and inland areas by perpetuating or restoring ecosystem services. This includes, but is not limited to, the conservation, preservation, or sustainable management of any form of aquatic or terrestrial vegetated open space, such as beaches, dunes, tidal marshes, reefs, seagrass, flood plains, parks, rain gardens, and urban tree canopies to mitigate high heat days. It also includes systems and practices that use or mimic natural processes, such as permeable pavements, bioswales, and other engineered systems, such as levees, that are combined with restored natural systems to provide clean water, conserve ecosystem values and functions, and provide a wide array of benefits to people and wildlife.
(k) “Protection” means those actions necessary to prevent harm or damage to persons, property, or natural resources or those actions necessary to allow the continued use and enjoyment of property or natural resources and includes acquisition, development, restoration, preservation, and interpretation, as defined by Section 75005.
(l) “Regional greenprint” means a plan that identifies natural lands, water resources, urban habitats, working lands, and recreational and other open spaces that conserve ecosystem values and functions, support climate mitigation and resilience, provide associated benefits to people, and are integrated into community and regional growth strategies.
(m) “Resilience” means the ability of an entity or system, including an individual, a community, or a natural system, and its component parts to absorb, accommodate, or recover from the effects of a hazardous event in a timely and efficient manner, including through ensuring the preservation, restoration, or improvement of its essential basic structures and functions. In the case of natural and working lands, resilience includes the preservation, restoration, or enhancement of the ability to sequester carbon.
(n) (1) “Restoration” means the improvement of physical structures or facilities, and, in the case of natural systems and landscape features, includes, but is not limited to, any of the following:
(A) The control of erosion.
(B) Stormwater capture and storage, or to otherwise reduce stormwater pollution.
(C) The control and elimination of invasive species.
(D) The planting of native species.
(E) The removal of waste and debris.
(F) Prescribed burning and managing natural ignitions for ecological restoration purposes.
(G) Fuel hazard reduction.
(H) Fencing out threats to existing or restored natural resources.
(I) Road elimination or road improvements to prevent sedimentation in streams.
(J) Improving instream, riparian, flood plain, or wetland habitat conditions.
(K) Forest restoration.
(L) Other plant, fish, and wildlife habitat improvement to increase the natural system value of the property, or coastal or ocean resources.
(2) “Restoration” includes activities described in subdivision (b) of Section 79737 of the Water Code.
(3) “Restoration” also includes activities, such as the planning, monitoring, and reporting that are necessary to ensure successful implementation of the restoration objectives.
(o) “Severely disadvantaged community” means a community with a median household income of less than 60 percent of the area average.
(p) “Small community wastewater treatment facility” has the same meaning as is consistent with the use of this term for the purposes of the State Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund Small Community Grant Fund, as described in Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 79720) of Division 26.7 of the Water Code.
(q) “State air board” means the State Air Resources Board.
(r) “Tribe” means a federally recognized Native American tribe or a nonfederally recognized Native American tribe listed on the California Tribal Consultation List maintained by the Native American Heritage Commission.
(s) “Vulnerable population” means a subgroup of population within a region or community that faces a disproportionately heightened risk or increased sensitivity to impacts of climate change and that lacks adequate resources to cope with, adapt to, or recover from such impacts.
(t) “Water board” means the State Water Resources Control Board.