Mission

View flooded agricultural fields in the Sacramento Valley to share with key decisionmakers the benefits of reestablishing floodplains to provide habitat for fish, insects, and birds. Fly with Politico, CalTrout, and the California State Assembly, California Rice Commission, California Natural Resources Agency, and California Department of Finance to advance the efforts to expand what is happening near Sacramento throughout the whole of California's Central Valley.

Our overflight examined the Sacramento Valley's vast agricultural fields and the changes this region has undergone. Centuries ago, California's Central Valley was comprised of operational floodplains; now those floodplains are largely rice fields.

EcoFlights partners are working to reactivate these floodplains to provide rich habitat and food sources for fish, insects, and migratory birds, and to reduce flood risk for the communities living here. From the air, we viewed fields that, thanks to the Floodplain Forward Coalition, are flooded, providing a nature-based solution that mimics natural processes. This allows agricultural lands to be best utilized, producing food while maintaining their critical ecosystem services. Seasonal flooding creates amazing habitat for native plant communities, insects, salmon, and fowl, while helping the Sacramento Valley to mitigate against flood risk.

Our partners at the Floodplain Forward Coalition are a group of 27 entities made up of farmers, water managers, biologists, conservationists, and government agencies. The ambition of Floodplain Forward is to amplify what is being done on a small-scale in the Sacramento Valley by restoring floodplains and wildlife habitat to hundreds of thousands of acres of Central Valley farmland, creating critical habitat for endangered salmon and birds, and reducing flood risks for Californians. Watch this video created from discussions and aerial footage from our flight day.

EcoFlight is pleased to provide you with these photos from the flight and these geo-referenced flight photos.