There will be winners and there will be losers as Southern California beaches erode unevenly in response to rising sea levels over the next century, according to a new study.

Using models to project how climate change would alter the width of the sand, attendance and visitor spending at 51 public beaches in Los Angeles and Orange counties, a team of researchers found some would shrink or even disappear. But others would remain relatively large.

A 1-meter rise in sea level would reduce the width of beaches up and down the coast, according to the study. And with the changes come economic consequences for beach towns that count on the seashore to produce a steady stream of tourist dollars.

Smaller beaches in towns like Laguna Beach stand to lose $14 million annually because of narrowing while larger beaches in places like Huntington Beach could gain as much as $16 million each year as visitors increasingly head to their more spacious shores.

“Every beach is going to get a little bit smaller because of the bathtub effect of water rising,” said the study's lead author, Linwood Pendleton, director of ocean and coastal policy at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

"But a lot of these beaches aren’t low-lying and they’re going to do just fine in the face of sea level rise. So Californians are just going to change what they do at the beach and the places they go.”