The Restoration of an Urban Floodplain in Rahway

The highly urbanized Rahway River watershed in New Jersey suffers from frequent flooding due to extensive development and destruction of riparian wetlands and floodplains. A diverse group of stakeholders worked together to restore a 1.8 ha site on the floodplain to riparian wetland with the goals of providing wildlife habitat, filtering pollutants from stormwater runoff, providing stormwater retention to minimize flooding, and providing public access for passive recreation as well as education about wetlands and watershed management. Native plants were installed by volunteers who continue to do invasive species management at the site. The wetland achieved well over 85 percent coverage of target hydrophytes.