Healthy floodplains are nature’s buffer against weather extremes. The San Francisco Chronicle reports on an innovative project in the San Joaquin Valley combining flood management with ecosystem restoration. The plan includes the purchase of an existing ranch by a nonprofit group called River Partners. The $10 million project is expected to take 10 years to complete, and will transform low-lying farmland back into riparian floodplain.
John Carlon, president of River Partners, quoted in the Chronicle said, “A really major component of this project is flood control. If all these low areas near the river were acquired, theoretically you could store more water in the reservoirs because you could spill more out all at once without hurting the neighbors. It is a different way of looking at water supply management.”
Reclaiming almond groves, corn and wheat fields and retuning them to wetlands will benefits migrating fish as well as hundreds of thousands of birds along the Pacific Flyway, one of the largest migratory bird paths in the world.
According to the Chronicle, some 95 percent of the historic floodplains in the Central Valley were filled in or blocked by levees after the Gold Rush. The work is a model for California’s first-ever attempt to create a systemwide flood management plan for the state’s major reservoirs.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/San-Joaquin-Valley-floodplain-coaxed-back-4194095.php
