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Restoration

Developing and implementing ecosystem restoration projects in Oregon and Washington from Bonneville Dam to the Pacific Ocean

Restoration at a glance

11,000+

ACRES

Reconnected to the mainstem Columbia River and its tidally influenced tributaries

80+

PROJECTS

Implemented to reconnect and revegetate floodplains and wetlands in the Columbia River Estuary

20+

years

Of restoration, research, and monitoring guided by adaptive management

Explore CEERP’s Completed Restoration Actions

The BPA Completed Restoration Actions GIS Dashboard includes information about CEERP’s floodplain reconnection sites and other completed restoration actions throughout the estuary.

This dashboard is designed for desktop use. For mobile users, access the dashboard at this link and explore it in landscape mode.

An Adaptive Management Approach to Restoration

The principal conservation effort under CEERP is to reconnect historical floodplain wetlands to the mainstem of the Columbia River and support restoration actions that demonstrate a high potential to benefit ecosystem function and endangered fish populations.

Through adaptive management, CEERP uses the following approach: restore, monitor, learn, and repeat. Each element of this adaptive management cycle relies on continuous management, coordination, and sponsored science activities that inform a collaborative, iterative approach to restoration.

CEERP’s adaptive management approach:

Promotes efficient use of resources by focusing on effective strategies
Promotes understanding of estuarine processes through monitoring and evaluation
Enhances long-term sustainability of restored ecosystems, and
Enables changes based on advances in scientific knowledge.

Learn more about CEERP’s approach to adaptive management

Estuary ecosystem restoration: implementing and institutionalizing adaptive management (Ebberts et al., 2017)
Adaptive management of large-scale ecosystem restoration: increasing certainty of habitat outcomes in the Columbia River Estuary, U.S.A. (Littles et al., 2022)

Our Approaches to Restoration

Floodplain Reconnection

CEERP restoration is predicated on floodplain reconnection. Approaches include breaching levees, removing or improving culverts and tidegates, and otherwise improving connectivity between the river and the floodplain.

Channel Excavation and Grading

Channel excavation and floodplain grading facilitate access and create a complex and resilient foundation for natural processes to create and maintain wetland habitats.

Invasive Species Removal

Reed canary grass, purple loosestrife, and yellow flag iris are among the several invasive plant species in the Columbia River Estuary. CEERP restoration projects work to remove invasive species and promote a diversity of native plants, increasing wetland habitat capacity.

Native Plant Revegetation

To complement other restoration measures or existing native plant communities, our restoration projects revegetate restored areas with seeds, young plants, stakes, and young trees and shrubs.

Woody Debris Placement

Woody debris placement in estuary restoration, like stream restoration, is thought to enhance habitat complexity and the juvenile salmon food web, supporting biodiversity and stabilizing sediment to foster a more resilient ecosystem. CEERP researchers are actively studying the benefits of this approach in tidally influenced tributaries and estuaries.

Featured Projects

Steigerwald National Wildlife Refuge

In CEERP’s largest project to date, the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership partnered with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and many other agencies and community organizations, to reconnect 965 acres of the Steigerwald National Wildlife Refuge to the Columbia River.

Wallooskee-Youngs

Located at the confluence of the Walluski and Youngs Rivers near Astoria, Oregon, the Cowlitz Indian Tribe reconnected 163 acres of tidal wetlands to the dynamic hydrology of Youngs Bay.

Burlington Bottoms

Partnering with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, West Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District, Natural Resource Conservation Service, and a private landowner, the Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce reconnected the John R. Palensky Wildlife Area and a neighboring property to Multnomah Channel, providing access to 285 acres of floodplain.

Kerry Island

In 2016, Columbia Land Trust acquired and restored 96 acres of floodplain along Westport Slough, reconnecting seven tidal channels and removing 28,000 cubic yards of levee material.

Restoration Design Challenges

The Restoration Design Challenges study is a CEERP effort addressing the primary challenges that practitioners—including planners, engineers, and scientists—often face when designing and implementing habitat restoration projects within the Columbia River Estuary. The main challenges studied to date include:

Designing topographic mounds including higher-elevation woody plants, to enhance habitat complexity and reduce risks associated with sea level rise

Optimizing channel outlets for fish access and fidelity to historical conditions formed by local geology and hydrological processes

Controlling invasive reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea) to avoid monocultures and restore native vegetation

Placing large wood to enhance the juvenile salmon food web and support ecosystem resilience.

This work provides science-based guidance to refine restoration techniques, inform adaptive management strategies, and improve project outcomes. While we are focused on the Columbia Estuary, lessons are likely applicable to restoration projects in other systems.

Learn more about CEERP’s Restoration Design Challenges:

Assessment of methods to control invasive reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea) in tidal freshwater wetlands (Sinks et al., 2021)
Floodplain wetland channel planform, cross-sectional morphology, and sediment characteristics along an estuarine to tidal river gradient (Diefenderfer et al., 2021)
Ecohydrology of wetland plant communities along an estuarine to tidal river gradient (Borde et al., 2020).

Experimental Projects

CEERP supports multiple pilot projects that investigate the role of beneficial use of dredged material and large woody debris to enhance ecosystem restoration. These sites are closely monitored to assess these experimental actions as tools for restoration.

Woodland Islands

The Woodland Islands project was a collaborative effort to restore juvenile salmon-friendly, low-velocity wetland habitats using sediment from routine navigation channel dredging. The project successfully created 7 acres of new land, enhancing habitats for juvenile salmonids, bird species, and other native wildlife. Woodland Islands has also served as a site for studying the effects of dredged material placement on benthic assemblages.

South Bachelor Island

The South Bachelor Island project cleared 120,000 cubic yards of dredged sand, reconnecting a floodplain wetland to the Columbia River and opening 40 acres of vital habitat for use by outmigrating juvenile salmon, improving their survivability odds on their way to the ocean. This project also placed 90,000 cubic yards of the dredged material downstream to create shallow water habitat. WDFW has monitored the entrainment of that sediment to help inform future dredged material placement efforts.

South Tongue Point

The South Tongue Point project transformed 22 acres of dredged material deposited in the 1950s into tidal wetland through floodplain reconnection and deposition of large wood. This habitat provides rearing and feeding grounds for juvenile salmon and steelhead, with ongoing native plant restoration to enhance ecosystem resilience. It is also the site of a rare restoration-related field experiment, in this case to determine the function of logs placed in channels to support the juvenile salmon food web.

How We Get the Work Done

Land Agreements

Securing permissions and collaborating with landowners to enable restoration efforts

Reconnection

Restoring natural river connections and enhancing ecosystem functionality

Revegetation

Removing invasive species and replanting native species to rebuild habitat and support biodiversity

Wapato planting as part of native plant revegetation. (Photo by the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership)

Interested in learning more about restoration funded by the Columbia Estuary Ecosystem Restoration Program? Get a better understanding of how CEERP evaluates projects with the Expert Regional Technical Group (ERTG) process or dive into the scientific, engineering, and regulatory details of the Habitat Improvement Program 4 Handbook.

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