Case Studies

Local organizations in Knox County, Indiana, campaigned to raise awareness of the environmental and economic destruction that encroaching invasive species can have on communities. Representatives from the agriculture, horticulture and landscaping industries collaborated with conservation experts and the county attorney to determine the scope of an ordinance proposal that would ban 64 invasive plant species in the county.

King Fisher Beach in Port O’Connor, Texas is a major destination for tourists and local recreation. It is increasingly susceptible to the impacts of storm surge, sea-level rise, and erosion. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers nourished King Fisher Beach with 58,305 cubic meters of dredged sediment.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed a thin-layer placement of dredged material project at Jekyll Creek, Georgia. This project added dredged material to a subsiding, threatened coastal marsh. This project, covering 2 hectares, supports a variety of wildlife and native marsh grasses, and creates a more resilient coastal system.

Big Egg Marsh in Jamaica Bay, NY was experiencing subsidence, erosion, plant mortality, isolation, and other threats related to sea-level rise. This marsh, adjacent to Broad Channel village, was chosen for a thin-layer placement restoration project to increase marsh elevation and vegetation. The site was restored to a silty-organic saltmarsh.

In 2002, local, state, and federal partners collaborated to form the Virgin River Resource Management and Recovery Program (VRP) in order to address the threats to native fish species by eradicating invasive Red Shiner. VRP partners constructed three fish barriers on the mainstem Virgin River and applied piscicide (rotenone) treatments.

Interstate Island is located in Duluth Superior Harbor in Lake Superior. The island is critical habitat for the state-threatened common tern (Sterna hirundo), and was experiencing flooding, erosion, and land loss. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers placed 51,990 cubic meters of dredged material on the island to prevent further loss.

The Southeast Arizona Collaborative Grassland Workgroup was created in 2010 to develop a southeastern Arizona Regional Pronghorn Strategy to increase pronghorn population numbers, distribution, and connectedness. The project aimed to improve habitat connectivity and access to available water sources through strategic fence modifications, and improve habitat quality through grassland restoration and addition of water sources.

Fishery biologists and park managers from the Native Fish Ecology and Conservation Program in Grand Canyon National Park are taking a holistic approach to expand the abundance and distribution of Humpback Chub within the park. They removed non-native Brown and Rainbow Trout via fishing and electrofishing, and then translocated Humpback Chub tothree Colorado River tributaries.

Clayton County Water Authority (CCWA) has converted from spray irrigation-land application to constructed wetlands to treat municipality wastewater for Clayton County, Georgia. Constructed wetlands lower construction costs from $10 a gallon under the conventional methods to $4.73 a gallon. They also reduce land use by 75%, save energy, and reduce equipment, materials, and maintenance cost.

Dams in the Penobscot River have prevented fish passage from the Gulf of Maine for centuries. To restore connectivity, the Penobscot River Restoration Trust built the largest nature-based fish bypass channel in the United States. This project will help restore Atlantic Salmon populations, and the cultural heritage of the Penobscot Nation.

This project was conducted in Brunswick, Georgia toevaluate the recovery response of salt marsh vegetation and impact of selected species upon thin layer placement of dredged materials. The study found that marsh elevation could be altered through thin layer placement of dredged material without loss of the functional values.

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources hired the Design-Build team of EcoGro/Ridgewater/Stantec to design and build a one-mile extension downstream to create one of Kentucky’s first self-sustaining trout stream capable of supporting spawning, which was previously impaired by the Wolf Creek dam.

The Nature Conservancy restored a 54-acre oyster reef in Matagorda Bay, Texas. This project successfully restored large, thriving oyster reefs that have enhanced biodiversity in the bay. This increase in biodiversity has improved recreational fishing opportunities and fishing-related tourism in the area. The increase in fishing at Half Moon Bay reef adds around $691,000 to Texas’ gross domestic product annually.

Since 2004, A.T. & Lucinda Cole, founders of the Pitchfork Ranch in New Mexico, have been working to restore the ciénaga habitat that had been degraded by overgrazing. They constructed over 200 in-channel and 800 drainage grade-control structures, implemented sustainable gazing, replanted tree and vegetation, and reintroduced endangered wildlife species.

The native Guadalupe Bass had become locally extirpated in the San Marcos River and its tributary due to hybridization with non-native Smallmouth Bass, habitat degradation, and reduced water availability. With funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) led a project to restore the native Guadalupe Bass population

Since 2017, biologists from the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) and USFWS have conducted mechanical removal of Green Sunfish to protect native aquatic species diversity in Ash Creek, Arizona. With a rock waterfall barrier near the confluence with Trout Creek, managers and biologists isolated source populations for native fish while removing the invasive Green Sunfish.

Funded by the USEPA’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a wetland system is constructed to reduce phosphorous loading in a forested cropland. Phosphorus is removed through natural processes such as particulate nutrient sedimentation, sorption to soil particles, and uptake by wetland plants. The project achieved a 50% - 80% phosphorus reduction and co-benefits like wildlife and fish proliferation.

This project created 335 acres of marsh and 28,342 linear feet of earthen containment dike in Bayou Grande Cheniere, Louisiana. This project utilized sediment materials from the Mississippi River borrow areas. This marsh and containment dike will enhance biodiversity and coastal protection from erosion and wave action.

For over ten years, the Tucson Audubon Society has collaborated with Audubon Southwest through the Important Bird Area (IBA) program to develop a protocol that protects the Chestnut-collared Longspur (Calcarius ornatus; CCLO). They monitored the CCLO population through volunteer-led in-person surveys and audio recordings, analyzed the conditions of cattle tanks, and documented the presence of invasive Lehmann’s lovegrass.

As temperatures and pests change, urban ecosystems will need to adjust and will become ever more important for public health and quality of life. In 2012, the City of Goshen completed an urban tree canopy inventory and assessment in order to understand what trees are in the community and how they will be impacted by environmental changes.

Led by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), this project aimed to apply the integrated pest management (IPM) approach to control the invasive giant salvinia (Salvinia molesta) in Lake Raven, a 203-acre reservoir located in the Huntsville State Park, Texas.

The City of Gary initiated the “Vacant to Vibrant” project in 2014, which aimed to mitigate flooding due to aging sewer system. The project completed the construction of three sites in the Aetna neighborhood by 2016, converting 0.37 acres of vacant land into green infrastructure featuring bat houses, rain gardens, and native plantings.

Dredged material was used to nourish the beach at 61st Street on Galveston Island, TX. This project increases recreational opportunities on the beaches and increases tourism to Galveston and nearby Houston, TX. This project is part of a long-term strategy to provide storm protection, increase property value, and reduce erosion.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation created the state’s first living shoreline at a freshwater, high-energy site. This living shoreline replaced a failing bulkhead, and provided the state with important information on freshwater living shorelines, sources of erosion, and stormwater management practices. The project owes some of its success to being small, non-controversial, and well-designed.

Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, near Jacksonville, North Carolina contains over 2600 acres of coastal wetlands that are at risk of drowning due to sea-level rise, low elevation, and limited sediment supply. This project served as an experiment to determine viability of thin-layer placement for marsh restoration in similar locations.

The Fowl Meadow Purple Loosestrife Biological Control Project is a five-year collaborative wetland restoration project in the Neponset River Watershed, Massachusetts. The project uses Galerucella calmariensis and G. pusilla beetles and larvae as a biological control agent to control and reduce the presence of exotic, invasive Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria).

The Fort Valley Project was an experiment designed to test forest treatments that were intended to restore natural ecological qualities and reduce the hazard of intense wildfire in the urban/wildland interface around Flagstaff, Arizona. The primary goal of the project was the reverse the degradation of ponderosa pine ecosystems by restoring their structure and function along with the natural disturbance regimes that were characteristic of their evolutionary environment.

Intensive campground use at the Grant Grove area of Kings Canyon National Park, California, has compacted the soil and left areas without understory vegetation or tree recruitment. To better inform the restoration of these sites after closure, natural regeneration potential was tested against planting and soil restoration methods.

This project planted approximately 474,634 native plants seaward of existing dunes along Pensacola Beach on Santa Rosa Island, Florida. Plantings were 76% sea oats, 19% panic grass, and 5% other native species. These plants were chosen to maximize sand stabilization and limit wind erosion of the dunes.

This project aimed to restore oyster populations in Pensacola Bay, St. Andrews Bay, and Apalachicola Bay in Florida. This project placed 49,000 cubic yards of cultch material over 210 acres of previously constructed oyster bars. This project hoped to maximize oyster larvae settling and oyster colonization at each restoration site.

Havasu National Wildlife Refuge is threatened by a large population of invasive Feral Swine (Sus scrofa). Feral Swine negatively impact native vegetation and wildlife, cause damage to human property and infrastructure, and are a public health and safety threat. In 2016, refuge staff and many collaborators began to work towards Feral Swine eradication within the refuge.

This project is a large-scale, multi-agency Effort to eradicate the infestations of the invasive strain of the tropical marine alga, Caulerpa taxifolia from two sites in California. At the time when no technique had been demonstrated effective to treat the infestations, the team chose to apply chlorine bleach treatment.

This project will restore dunes on Duxbury Beach to prevent erosion and enhance the beach’s ability to protect communities behind it from storm surges and sea-level rise. 76,633 tons of sand were used to restore the dunes. The dunes were raised to 17ft high, and the tops of the dunes were raised to over 45 feet.

In response to the floods following tropical storm Irene, and the potential for a significant increase in the Japanese knotweed popuation, the state of Vermont hired a coordinator to develop and carry out an early detection & rapid response (EDRR) work plan to eliminate as many of these new plants as possible, using only manual labor.

The use of organic amendments such as compost is a potential tool for grassland restoration. Compost additions can promote soil water retention and plant productivity, and reduce erosion. Cost is a major barrier to this technique. This study worked to understand and quantify the ecological benefits of compost addition, in the hopes of promoting its economic viability as a restoration method.

The Dutch Slough project is a large-scale tidal marsh restoration, habitat enhancement and open space preservation project in the rapidly urbanizing area of eastern Contra Costa County. The 1,166-acre site was purchased in 2003, and adaptive management interventions were planned as experiments to study how the ecosystem functions and how best to achieve the restoration objectives.

The Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve in Florida is undergoing restoration efforts to improve water quality and enhance habitat for fish and wildlife. The project includes the restoration of coastal marshes and the removal of invasive species.

The Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Massachusetts is working to restore eelgrass beds in Waquoit Bay. Eelgrass provides important habitat for fish and shellfish and helps to stabilize the seafloor.

The East Fork Carson River Restoration project in Nevada aims to restore the river's floodplain and riparian areas, which have been degraded by historical land use practices. The project includes the removal of invasive species and the planting of native vegetation.

The DuPont Nature Center in Delaware is working to restore oyster reefs in the Delaware Bay. The project aims to improve water quality, enhance habitat for fish and shellfish, and protect the shoreline from erosion.

Curtis Prairie is a 60-acre tallgrass prairie that was restored from agricultural land starting in the 1930s. It is one of the oldest restored prairies in the world and serves as a model for ecological restoration.

With a growing push to remove low-head dams due to safety concerns and the potential for ecosystem improvement, Corydon, Indiana was approached by The Nature Conservancy to remove two dams owned by the Town. The dams blocked potential habitat for the endangered hellbender salamander.

The Salton Sea, as the largest lake in California, is an important habitat for migratory birds on the Pacific flyway. The habitat is threatened by decreased water levels and increased salinity and selenium levels. This project created an experimental complex to try and create shallow saline habitat ponds as suitable habitat for wildlife.

While massive waves attract surfers and visitors to the North Shore of O‘ahu in Hawai‘i, they also cause coastal erosion and high sea level events that threaten coastal residents. Instead of building sea walls, the state took an ecological approach by restoring sand dunes in front of coastal properties.

An astonishing 50% of the original Everglades have been destroyed due to changes in the hydrologic regime and urbanization in Florida. In 2000, Congress approved the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) that provides funding for alterations to existing structures and addition of new structures (reservoirs, channels, etc.) to re-create the effect of the original water flow.

Supported by NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management, the Shoalwater Bay Tribe, local government, and the North Cove community designed a “dynamic revetment” along the shoreline with rebuilt dunes and placement of cobble berms as part of the local efforts to find effective treatments for severe shoreline erosion, flooding, and sea level rise along Willapa Bay, Washington.

The Commercial Township Salt Hay Farm, in the southern portion of the Delaware Bay, is being restored through the Estuary Enhancement Program. The diked marsh was degraded and subsided from sedimentation, soil compaction, and soil oxidation. This project uses thin-layer placement to increase marsh elevation and restore marsh function.

The Montezuma quail’s (Cyrtonyx montezumae) primary habitat is Madrean oak woodlands. These habitats are degrading from the impacts of climate change and habitat destruction. This project aims to restore Madrean oak woodlands and Montezuma quail populations through a partnership of Sonoran Joint Venture, Borderlands Restoration Network, and Southern Arizona Quail Forever.

Cleveland Metroparks worked closely with 12 community-based organizations and 40 stakeholder groups in restoring Lake Erie’s eastern shorefront. The team managed to conduct virtual and in-person outreach activities during the COVID-19 pandemic and develop a plan for 150 acres of park and habitat amenities, including 80 acres of newly acquired park land.

As part of an EPA study and initiative to combat the urban heat island effect and to improve urban air quality, Mayor Richard M. Daley and the City of Chicago began construction of a 38,800 square foot (total roof area) semi-extensive greenroof in April 2000.

The Cat Island Chain in Green Bay, Wisconsin was lost to erosion and storms in the 1970s. This project is rebuilding the islands using clean dredged material from a nearby navigational channel. This will create beach and wetland habitat for many species and support both sport and commercial fisheries.

Cape Lookout State Park, located in coastal Oregon, experienced extreme erosion and storm damage to its beach and infrastructure. Instead of a less aesthetic, more expensive, seawall or revetment, managers opted to build a cobble berm backed by an artificial dune to increase coastal protection and enhance the natural shoreline community.

A team of nonprofit organizations and government agencies led by the California State Coastal Conservancy developed preliminary design plans to use a gravel beach and berm in the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve to protect critical habitat, control erosion, and enhance shoreline resilience on the south San Francisco Bay.

BLM is leading the construction and maintenance of a system of up to 11,000 miles of strategically placed fuel breaks to control wildfires within a 223-million-acre area in the Great Basin that includes portions of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada and Utah. Fuel breaks would be implemented along roads or rights-of-way on BLM-administered lands.

The West Fork San Luis Rey River on Palomar Mountain, in Southern California hosts a population of native Coastal Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus) that were threatened by the invasive Black Bullhead (Ameiurus melas). After two years of work, biologists from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife achieved complete bullhead eradication within this stream.

A manufacturing company purchased 100 acres of abandoned golf course on floodplain of Fort Collins to develop its new headquarter. To reduce the frequency and severity of flooding, the company reconnected the Cache la Poudre River with its floodplain, removing fill from 31 acres to build up pads for properties.

Saguaro National Park, in the Sonoran Desert near Tuscon, Arizona, is threatened by invasive perennial grasses. These grasses outcompete native plants and heighten the risk of wildfires, a disturbance that the park’s ecosystem is not adapted to. Park managers want to remove invasive grasses and restore native species landscapes.

Brunswick Town–Fort Anderson is an important historic site on the North Carolina coast. To prevent further erosion and negative impacts from storms and sea-level rise, the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources installed 140-meters of Reefmaker along the shoreline. This stabilized the shoreline and produces multiple co-benefits.

Brooklyn Bridge Park boasts 2 kilometers of shoreline and 14 hectares of open space that serves thousands of visitors per day. This industrial shoreline has lost natural intertidal habitats and biodiversity. The park constructed two ECO-concrete projects to enhance biodiversity:  concrete tide pools and repairing aging piles with eco-friendly substrate to recruit invertebrates.

An eelgrass restoration program implemented by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries aimed to mitigate assumed impacts to marine resources resulting from the HubLine gas pipeline construction which transits the Harbor. The restoration was intended to provide important shallow-water eelgrass habitat to juvenile crustaceans, shellfish, and finfish which commonly inhabit sea grass meadows.

Bayou La Branche, originally a brackish marshland, was levied and pumped into farmland before flooded into a large, open-water pond after the 1915 Hurricane. USACE and Louisiana Department of Natural Resources aimed to re-create the marsh habitat with an area of 70% land and 30% water within 5 years of construction.

In 2017, the Bedford Parks and Recreation Department partnered with Live Well Lawrence County to open Bedford Garden Park, a community garden. The resulting park is now a space that produces food, brings people together, and offers activities that improve physical and mental health.

The iconic and productive Sonoran Desert landscapes of the Tuscon Basin are threatened by Buffelgrass, an invasive species introduced to the area in the 1930s. Buffelgrass alters the fire regime and is a threat to ecosystems, and human life and property. The Southern Arizona Buffelgrass Coordination Center was established in 2008 to bring stakeholders together to remove Buffelgrass effectively.

A tidal marsh in Bayou Lafourche, Louisiana was degrading due to subsidence and sea-level rise, as well as a drought-induced die-off of Spartina alterniflora. 7.5 hectares of marsh was restored using thin-layer placement of dredged material. Sediment placement improved the recovery of the marsh and increased plant biomass.

Through no-till and cover-crop practices, the soil health management system an Ohio farmer practices restore and re-carbonize soil. The no-till practices increase crop yields by 36-44%, sequesters around 960 kg of carbon per hectare per year, and reduce fertilizer and herbicide use by 75 percent.

Barataria Basin, just south of New Orleans, Louisiana contains marshes that are rapidly subsiding from leveeing of the Mississippi River and loss of regular sediment depositions. The marsh received sediment from a nearby location to increase elevation and relieve plant stress. This restoration effort increased aboveground biomass and accretion rates.

This project aimed to create marsh habitat and restore a ridge at the Spanish Pass Increment of the Barataria Basin in Louisiana. Spanish Pass is a natural historic tributary of the Mississippi River with degraded channel banks and adjacent marsh. This project created 397 acres of ridge and 1,261 acres of marsh habitat.

In 2003, NOAA led a partnership that restored a 0.8-acre salt marsh in Bar Beach Lagoon, North Hempstead, New York, as part of a natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) settlement addressing natural resource injury damages due to release of contaminants into Hempstead Harbor.

The first wildlife overpass was constructed by the Canadian government in Banff National Park in 1982 to reduce wildlife collisions. Till 2022, six overpasses and 38 underpasses have been constructed across Banff, reducing wildlife collisions by 80 percent. The project started with opposition and criticism from the public doubting whether animals would use the structure.

The coastal marsh habitat in Blair Island, San Francisco was impaired by construction of salt ponds and dirt levees before its ecological value was recognized. The project aimed to restore the 1, 400 acres of diked marsh to tidal marsh primarily by breaching the perimeter levees to allow tidal action via surrounding slough channels.

This project, implemented by the NC Division of Water Quality and NC Division of Forest Resources, aimed to reduce nitrogen and mercury loading of downstream waters in the Albemarle/Palmico estuary...

Along the Morro Bay, the wetlands, intertidal mudflats, salt and freshwater marshes, eelgrass beds host some of the most productive natural habitats in the world. To protect the ecological signific...

The Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest (ASNF) utilized over 25 million funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to support projects that increase local employment, support fore...

This project is assessing the role of Woody-Plant Encroachment and brush management on the carbon cycle, carbon storage potential, biodiversity, and rangeland ecosystem stability and resilience. Da...

The Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) was established in June of 1984. The project aimed to restore the restore spring sources and outflow channels and associated riparian habitats that we...

City of Arlington constructed a 21-acre stormwater wetland park to treat stormwater from Old Town Arlington, clean backwash water from the City’s water treatment plant, and reclaim water from the C...

In 2007 the Anacostia Watershed Society (AWS) initiated an experimental research project, called the 38th St. Bridge Project, on the rip-rap slope along the streambanks in order to demonstrate an a...

Encompassing some of the wildest and least populated territory in the state, the Klamath region of Northern California faces threats from invasive species in its wildland ecosystems. To protect the...

Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) populations are declining in Utah and other western states due to the degradation of their seasonal habitats from the encroachment of pinyon-juniper ...

In northern Wisconsin, tribal foresters from the Menominee Nation are working to speed regeneration of more than 200,000 acres of forest areas that have been treated for invasive diseases like oak ...

The Yakima Basin Integrated Water Resource Management Plan is a 30-year, $3.8 billion plan that restores ecological integrity to the region and provides assurances for meeting agricultural water ne...

After years of hard work by American Rivers and its project partners, the Bloede Dam in Maryland’s Patapsco River was successfully removed in 2018, restoring 52.5 miles of the river’s natural flow ...

In Florida's humid climate, strawberry growers are in a constant battle with two kinds of fruit rot. Using a decision support system, they can save money by spraying fields only when the plant dise...

Ah Pah Creek is a fourth order stream with a 16.3 square mile watershed composed entirely of steep, forested land that was degraded by road and highway construction. Yoruk Tribal Fisheries Program ...

The coral communities in Culebra were stressed by recognized erosion from an unpaved parking lot and road that had increased the volume of post-rainstorm runoff carrying pollutants. Community membe...

In 2001, downtown Houston, Texas, faced an historic 1,000-year flood as a result of Tropical Storm Allison, shutting down the 700-acre Texas Medical Center Complex. While rebuilding the Center to w...

The Trinity River basin has been degraded by human activities for almost two hundred years, leading to a decline in available salmonid habitat and populations. The Trinity River Restoration Program...

The Sonoran Desert ecosystem was degraded by agricultural development and groundwater pumping from the 1930s to 1970s. This project sought to restore the lowland desert by reestablishing perennial ...