Point Blue Conservation Science
climate challenge: Hydrological Changes
grant award: $168,380; year awarded: 2019
Climate change will significantly impact California’s climate and water cycle, highlighting a need to restore habitats that maintain hydrological function, including riparian zones. However, survival of newly planted riparian vegetation under current restoration approaches will decrease, and water for irrigation will become increasingly limited and costly. This project will deploy an innovative Inoculant-Supported Restoration (I-SR) technique, using mycorrhizal inocula sourced from reference riparian ecosystems currently experiencing warmer and drier conditions in the region, to enhance riparian restoration on six acres of rangeland in Marin and Sonoma counties. Through these efforts, the restored vegetation is expected to sequester a total of 150 tons of carbon within 20 years.