Thursday April 23, 2026
River Partners —
Though River Partners works throughout California, a recent focus of our restoration efforts has been in the San Joaquin Valley and Tulare Basin. Known for prodigious agricultural output over the last century, this region today is peppered with aging-out agricultural operations, old infrastructure, and an increased need for flood safety for communities.
Through a $40 million investment from the California Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB) in 2023 for restoration planning and implementation across the San Joaquin Valley, River Partners’ teams of scientists, ecologists, and restoration experts completed the permitting and design processes for 6,000 acres of landscape-scale projects, bringing them to “shovel-ready” status—meaning we are ready to invest in their implementation today.
In total, from Stockton to Bakersfield, these projects are poised to double the acreage of restored floodplains in the Valley. Internally at River Partners, we call them the “SJ10 Projects,” and they are the 10 highest-priority future floodplain restoration sites in the San Joaquin Valley. River Partners Director of Restoration Science Emma Havstad put this achievement into striking context.
“It’s significant that River Partners has restored more than 20,000 acres throughout California since 1998, a remarkable achievement by itself,” she said. “And in just the last two years, we have finished the first step to increase that by another 30%. At River Partners, we are passionate about increasing the pace and scale of restoration – this is what that looks like!”