Freshwater estuaries

  • Design estuaries with dynamic boundaries and buffers.
  • Replicate habitat types in multiple areas to spread risks associated with climate change.

  • Create permitting rules that constrain locations for landfills, hazardous waste dumps, mine tailings and toxic chemical facilities in areas near estuaries and waterways that flow into estuaries.
  • Integrate bank and shore management into land-use planning to prevent activities that can cause erosion and drainage from entering estuaries.
  • Implement a land acquisition program to purchase banks and shoreland that are damaged or prone to damage and use it for conservation.
  • Implement land exchange programs where owners exchange property in the floodplain for county-owned land outside of the floodplain to implement conservation on those areas and prevent potential negative impacts from entering the estuaries.
  • Manage realignment and deliberately realign engineering structures affecting rivers and estuaries.

  • Stabilize dunes that help prevent erosion along lakeshores by planting dune grasses and building sand fencing to induce settling of wind-blown sands that flow into estuaries.
  • Preserve or restore wetlands to help filter out pollutants and excess nutrients before they enter the estuary.
  • Increase shoreland setbacks to provide a stretch of undeveloped land along river banks and lakeshores to prevent erosion and preserve water quality.
  • Plant submerged aquatic vegetation (such as seagrasses) to stabilize banks and reduce erosion.
  • Restrict or prohibit development in erosion zones.

Source documents

These strategies are adapted from existing federal resources. Please view these strategies in the context provided by the primary source document: