California is preparing for extreme weather. It’s time to plant some trees.

By Henry Fountain

For years, there has been a movement in California to restore floodplains, by moving levees back from rivers and planting trees, shrubs and grasses in the low-lying land between. The goal has been to go back in time, to bring back some of the habitat for birds, animals and fish that existed before the state was developed.

But in addition to recreating the past, floodplain restoration is increasingly seen as a way of coping with the future — one of human-induced climate change. The reclaimed lands will flood more readily, and that will help protect cities and towns from the more frequent and larger inundations that scientists say are likely as California continues to warm.

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River Partners’ project, Dos Rios, covers more than three square miles of farmland here at the confluence of the Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers. It will benefit endangered animals like the riparian brush rabbit and birds like the least Bell’s vireo, but it is also designed to absorb some of the floodwater, holding it or slowing its flow to reduce levels in the nearby town of Grayson and elsewhere along the rivers.

Dos Rios is only one of many such efforts. Kris Tjernell, deputy director for integrated watershed management at the California Department of Water Resources, said the state was actively working on “upward of 20 or 30” projects, some on its own and some in concert with groups like River Partners.

That number is expected to grow significantly since California voters last month approved Proposition 68, which includes $300 million for floodplain projects in the Central Valley.

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