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 shrubs. The team determined historic species composition on a study site, acquiring seeds of those species, introduce them to the site, and provide them with extra water for establishment.

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 (YTFP) and the California Conservation Corps (CCC) collaborated to address riparian restoration needs within the drainage, including extensive riparian conifer planting in its three major tributaries.

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 and more than 65 miles of native fish spawning habitat. Removing the dam also strengthened community resilience, improved public safety, and facilitated increased sediment transport to marshes and beaches along the Chesapeake Bay.

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 needs even in the face of ongoing climate change. The plan includes key elements to help protect, mitigate, and enhance fish and wildlife habitat and improve the reliability of the region’s water supply.

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 wilt. Their efforts are also creating forests that are better adapted to future conditions.

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 forests and rivers, restoration efforts began by applying county-scale mapping tool to identify and treat high-priority eradication target.

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 significance of estuaries, stakeholders of the Morro Bay National Estuary Program in California worked with resources from the EPA's Climate Ready Estuaries program to identify their climate risks.

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.

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. 

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.  

This project created a living shoreline comprised of bioengineered, marsh-fringing oyster reefs. 11.5 miles of reef breakwaters, marine mattresses, and rock revetments were placed off the shoreline to establish the bioengineered reefs. This living shoreline will provide self-sustaining coastal protection from erosion, wave action, storm surges, and sea-level rise.

The City of Bloomington began a creek naturalization project in 2002 to address significant erosion caused by intense storm water pressure and to enhance biodiversity in a popular local park. Through partnerships with local organizations, the City reduced flooding impacts, improved water quality and increased plant and animal species diversity in the improvement area.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)–Detroit District and several other partners used Great Lakes Restoration Initiative funding to reconnect 340 kilometers of the Boardman River to Grand Traverse Bay of Lake Michigan. This project involved three dam removals over six years, and improved riverine habitat for important species. 

Warming temperatures threaten native species in the Madrean Sky Islands Archipelago as plants and animals cannot migrate to higher elevation under the steep slope and finite extents. Conservation organizations collaboratively document the climate vulnerability of mountain springs and facilitates restoration work to enhance habitats and protect biodiversity.

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.

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. 

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.  

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.

Cat Island and Ship Island are barrier islands off the coast of Mississippi that provide protection to coastal communities from erosion and storm surges. This project used millions of cubic meters of sand and reused dredged sediment to restore the islands’ beaches and dunes.  

Florida’s Charlotte Harbor Estuary was established as national estuary under the 1987 National Estuary Program for its significance to wildlife and local economy. A 20-year Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP) was formulated to restore and protect the estuarine system. Restoration activities started in June of 2001