The Importance of Healthy Meadows
Sierra Nevada headwaters provide roughly 60% of California's water supply, are home to the majority of California's inland native trout species, and are critical to supporting local and downstream economic livelihoods. However, Sierra Nevada headwater areas are also one of the most degraded regions throughout this vast landscape, threatening California's way of life. California's future and wellbeing depends on healthy headwaters, particularly given the uncertainty associated with a changing climate.
As Mark says, "Meadows are critical not only to the ecosystem, but they are also a key component of California's water infrastructure. Restoring meadows to their ecological health will in turn benefit California's water supply and quality for all."
In a degraded meadow, the hydrologic dynamics have been altered in a way that often lowers the water table and disconnects the stream from the meadow's flood plain. Over time, the meadow dries out leading to changes in vegetation, soil composition, and organic matter, as well as negative impacts to the aquatic environment critical to fish. The case for meadow restoration is fairly straightforward: by restoring the meadow you improve
its ability to store, filter, and release water more gradually, and the improved hydrologic functioning of the meadow results in higher quality soil that is more efficient at storing carbon.
One of the primary goals of this work is to demonstrate that restored meadows are able to store more carbon than degraded meadows, and then convert this sequestered carbon into credits that can be traded on California's cap-and-trade market. In the ideal scenario, the credits will be turned into funding to restore additional meadows, thus creating a self-sustaining cycle that would result in broader restoration of meadows across the Sierra and southern Cascades. The reality is that there are dozens of meadows that are considered prime candidates for restoration.
One way to frame the importance of this work is to consider its potential to help alleviate two of our state's most pressing environmental challenges: global warming and the drought. With projections of climate change showing that more Sierra precipitation will come in the form of rain rather than snow, the ability of meadows to store and release water efficiently will become even more critical to our state's water supply.