What isNaturalInfrastructure?

Wetlands are natural infrastructure superstars and perhaps the clearest example for sportsmen and women, who already understand the habitat and outdoor recreation opportunities provided by healthy wetlands. From the prairie potholes of the Dakotas to the headwater wetlands system of the Northern Everglades and the coastal marshes of the Mississippi River Delta, functioning wetlands provide a range of benefits to fish, wildlife, and our communities. First, they act like nature’s kidneys and filter polluted runoff that would otherwise make its way to vulnerable fish and wildlife habitat and water resources. Second, wetlands serve as buffers for dangerous flood waters and other extreme storm events. An acre of wetlands can store more than a million gallons of flood water, and coastal wetlands provide an estimated $23.2 billion in storm protection each year. And restoring wetlands can provide essential nesting habitat for America’s waterfowl and important nursery areas for juvenile fish and other species, securing healthy habitat for enhanced hunting and fishing opportunities.

Dune systems, adjacent beaches, and other natural shoreline systems—such as mangroves and oyster reefs—have long been nature’s idea of a seawall. But coastal development and natural forces such as erosion and extreme storms have stripped some communities of these natural barriers to wave action, high winds, and flooding. Increasingly, coastal communities are stabilizing shorelines using natural materials to reduce erosion and increase habitat and resilience. Living shorelines control erosion and flooding by using vegetation and other organic materials. Hybrid techniques are also used. For example, a living shoreline would combine marsh plants and submerged aquatic vegetation with harder materials for added structure and stability, such as oyster shells, rocks, or faux logs made out of coconut fiber. After a few months to a few years, living shorelines are teeming with life and provide both essential nursery grounds for striped bass, redfish, and snook and important stopover areas for migrating waterfowl.

Rivers and streams form the interconnected network of freshwater, brackish, and saltwater systems that, when healthy and intact, ensure healthy fish and wildlife populations and provide clean drinking water. Natural infrastructure opportunities for our rivers and streams often focus on restoring degraded systems, creating stream buffers to filter pollutants, and conserving headwaters to provide water storage for healthy river flows. Thousands of species, including some of the most recreationally valuable species of fish (striped bass, bluefish, red snapper, mackerel), also depend upon estuarine habitats—where rivers meet the sea. Estuaries provide important natural infrastructure benefits by acting as natural buffers, slowing waves and reducing their power during hurricanes and other storm events. Estuaries also filter out sediment and pollutants from rivers and streams before they flow into the ocean and their potential in natural infrastructure solutions is limitless.

Over 60 percent of the U.S. land base is privately owned. These farms, ranches, and timber lands are critical for healthy fish and wildlife populations and our hunting and fishing traditions. Private landowners are partnering with businesses, the conservation community, and federal, state, and tribal interests to advance natural infrastructure solutions in many ways. In addition to stewarding high-value habitats—such as wetlands, grasslands, forests, and rangelands, often with the help of farm bill conservation programs—private landowners support stream and floodplain restoration, migration corridor conservation, and innovative natural approaches to water storage and flood control.

Traditionally, the construction of dams or levees have assisted in flood reduction, but these structures have typically been built with minimal regard for impacts to adjacent natural systems. As we face an increase in extreme weather events, many private lands that would otherwise be farmed or grazed are increasingly at risk of repeated catastrophic flooding that overtake levees and small earthen dam systems. By working with private landowners, local communities, and state and federal water resource managers, we can shift away from low-lying and often marginally productive agricultural lands within historic floodplains to voluntary buy-out programs that help property owners acquire more productive agricultural lands. In turn, resource managers can work to remove earthen berms and dams, set levees back away from riverbanks, and restore natural floodplains to bottomland hardwoods, wetlands, and prairie habitats. And in turn, fully connected and restored floodplains will provide healthier habitat for deer, bears, migratory waterfowl, upland birds, and numerous fish species.