American rivers

Climate Change Challenge: less water, worse droughts

Grant Award: $249,315; Year Awarded: 2015

The Room for Rivers project is located in California’s Central Valley, which provides critically important wildlife habitat, water supply, and flood protection to the world’s seventh largest economy. The region also exemplifies a defining environmental challenge: reconciling ecosystem function with human needs in the face of a changing climate. Climate change is increasing pressure on compromised habitats as the frequency and severity of weather extremes such as droughts and floods increases. This project’s strategy has the potential to yield landscape-level ecological benefits to the entire assemblage of riverine species, while not substantially impacting crop yield or revenue. Their goal is to enhance climate change resiliency in one of the most visible and important working agricultural landscapes in the world by implementing a fish and farms model that increases floodplain habitat as a climate adaptation tool that supports species restoration, flood management, and sustainable water supply.