Restoration

Restoring Healthy Soils

CBF works one-on-one with farmers to implement regenerative agriculture practices that keep valuable nutrients and soil on the land—rather than in the water. These practices, which include rotational grazing, planting cover crops, and planting streamside buffers, also help improve farms' resilience to climate change and support vibrant agricultural economies that allow thousands of farms across the watershed to survive and thrive. Learn how regenerative agriculture practices are helping local farmers succeed.

Planting Trees on Farms, Along Streams, and in Urban Communities

Trees provide countless environmental, health, and economic benefits. At a time when the Chesapeake Bay watershed is struggling to meet water quality goals, planting trees remains one of the most successful and cost-effective solutions to reducing polluted runoff and cleaning local waterways. Through our tree planting initiatives, CBF staff and volunteers work directly with landowners and community groups to plant trees along rivers, streams, and shorelines, as well as in urban neighborhoods.

Forested stream buffers cool streams (important for sensitive fish and other aquatic species), improve water quality, stabilize stream banks against erosion, and provide critical habitat for wildlife. Planting trees also reduces the effects of climate change.

Many urban areas suffer from inequities in tree canopy caused by poor urban planning and historic racially motivated housing discrimination. Urban trees help reduce dangerous heat islands. They combat flooding, help reduce crime rates, and improve air quality. Here are just a few stories of how urban restoration is helping communities in Baltimore, West Philadelphia, and Richmond.

Restoring Native Oysters

Native oysters filter pollutants out of the Bay and their reefs provide crucial habitat for fish, crabs, and other Bay species. To reverse centuries of pollution, overharvesting, and disease that left oyster populations at a fraction of their historic levels, CBF restoration teams, volunteers, and partners raise juvenile oysters and work from the bottom up to rebuild reef habitat in targeted restoration areas. Learn more about our oyster restoration work in Maryland and Virginia.

Protecting Our Waterfront

Another form of restoration that protects water quality is the living shoreline. CBF works with landowners to create living shorelines along river and Bay waterfront using native wetland plants and grasses. This not only prevents erosion, it combats the impact of climate change,  captures sediment, restores habitat, and filters pollution.

From Our Blog