Even if you’ve never visited L.A., chances are you’ve seen the iconic L.A. River. It’s the wide concrete channel frequently featured in Hollywood films, showcasing drag races, chase scenes, and numerous commercials. Yet, this river doesn’t quite resemble a traditional river.
In response to devastating floods nearly a century ago, the river was lined with concrete along most of its 51-mile stretch. This transformation turned the river into a channel designed solely to quickly direct stormwater from the mountains to the ocean.
However, in three segments, the river remained without concrete. In these areas, an unexpected transformation occurred. Cottonwoods and willows reappeared, herons and egrets returned, and the endangered Santa Ana sucker fish found a home. The river also became a beloved neighborhood park, attracting people for biking and kayaking.
The river presents two distinct realities. The concrete infrastructure is costly and serves a single purpose, while the natural stretches offer multiple benefits: flood protection, habitat creation, public health, recreation, urban cooling, and water quality improvement. The river flows through neighborhoods where nearly a million Angelenos reside within a mile’s radius. Fortunately, the L.A. River is undergoing a restoration to revive these multiple benefits, enhancing habitat, air quality, and green spaces, while improving water quality, reducing erosion, and maintaining essential flood control.
This restoration initiative exemplifies a nature-based solution. Such solutions adapt to environmental challenges by working with nature rather than against it. Traditional infrastructure tends to be more costly and offers fewer benefits with more adverse effects. Nature-based solutions are often less expensive and more beneficial than concrete alternatives.
This is the inaugural post in a series exploring nature-based solutions in California. For further insights, you can consult our guide Working with Nature to Protect California’s Agricultural Regions: How Nature-Based Solutions Can Build Resilience, and view our first related Instagram video below.
A Whiplash Climate
Public health and environmental issues in California and elsewhere often stem from unsustainable land management, exacerbated by climate change. Extreme events swinging from one extreme to another have become the norm.
Historically, gray infrastructure was designed to control nature rather than harmonize with the environment, unlike many Indigenous practices. Climate change is increasing the frequency and cost of destruction, and gray infrastructure often struggles to adapt. Traditionally, the response has been reactive rather than preventive, with California spending significantly on fires, floods, and droughts after they occur. Every dollar not invested in resilience today results in higher costs in the near future.
These costs are not borne equally. All Californians contribute through taxes for disaster relief, but frontline communities with limited infrastructure also endure impacts on their health and daily lives.
Preparation for future challenges in California should not rely solely on gray infrastructure. Concrete dams, levees, and storm drains are costly, prone to failure, and oppose natural systems.
Nature-based solutions offer a more effective and economical approach.
Nature-based Solutions and Cropland Repurposing in Agricultural Regions
In Merced, at the heart of California’s San Joaquin Valley, agriculture is a major economic driver and a key part of local identity. However, for over a century, agricultural practices have been unsustainable, largely due to poor water management and practices like dry tillage, excessive pesticide use, monoculture, and irrigation of marginal lands, all worsened by climate change. My work is to understand this system and find solutions that don’t create further problems. With my passion for agriculture and the environment, along with connections in farmworker communities, I’ve long considered nature-based solutions for these regions.
My focus is on cropland repurposing to achieve equitable land transition. Current water laws in California mandate local agencies to manage groundwater sustainably and avoid “undesirable results” like dry wells and soil sinking. This legal framework could transform an ineffective system. Achieving water sustainability may require repurposing about one million acres of irrigated agriculture to reduce our water footprint.
While challenging, this also presents an opportunity to correct longstanding issues while adapting to climate change, embracing sustainable practices, and managing public resources wisely. Nature-based solutions can support water sustainability through aquifer recharge, floodplain restoration, and sustainable practices. They also address public health concerns like flood prevention, erosion, and pollution, while creating local jobs in construction, maintenance, and even tourism. However, nature-based solutions aren’t a panacea, and we need to develop pathways for local, sustainable economies. This initiative, termed a Just Land Transition, involves partners like Allensworth Progressive Association, Community Water Center, Environmental Defense Fund, and the California Department of Conservation, aiming to promote sustainability in California’s agricultural regions through science-based policies.
This blog series will highlight the potential of nature-based solutions as key tools for cropland repurposing and addressing climate justice in agricultural areas.
For more information, you can read our guide: Working with Nature to Protect California’s Agricultural Regions: How Nature-Based Solutions Can Build Resilience. Additionally, you can explore best practices in land repurposing beyond nature-based solutions on UCS’s webpage Guiding California’s Land Transitions Toward Justice and Equity.
California possesses the necessary tools, knowledge, and funding to make these better choices a reality. Proposition 4, the Climate Bond, has allocated billions for climate resilience and land repurposing, making nature-based solutions a promising way to invest taxpayer money for sustainable transformation.
