What We Do

For many communities across America, flooding is an expensive, messy and heartbreaking problem. Over the past decade, floods have caused more than $25 billion in damage in America, destroyed homes and businesses and threatened water quality in our communities. And with 100-year floods and even 500-year floods happening with alarming regularity, we need new solutions to keep our communities clean and dry when the rains come.

The good news: We have some of those solutions.

Land Conservation As Natural Flood Management

While flooding can’t be prevented, it can be minimized. Did you know that a single acre of wetlands can hold 1 million gallons of floodwater? Conserving wetlands is a preservation strategy that has been used in areas from Massachusetts to Colorado because wetlands capture floodwater and release it slowly back into the surrounding environment. Similarly, forests, full of thirsty tree roots and topsoil, can suck up excess water that could otherwise overrun and damage land. At the Fund, we understand that protecting wetlands and forests has myriad benefits, including maintaining a natural landscape that can help curb flooding in communities.

Flood Management In Urban Areas

In urban areas, our strategy is to engineer “green infrastructure” into city settings, so that well-placed trees, grassy areas, water-draining pavement and other features channel and control rainwater. For many urban areas, these "green" features offer an inexpensive add-on to the deep tunnels, pipes and other gray infrastructure used to control stormwater. As cities endure more intense storms, the right infrastructure can prevent sewers from overflowing and threatening water quality.

Our Efforts

While protecting large landscapes and planning green infrastructure, we continue to forge new solutions to help communities protect their landscapes. Click on the links below to learn more about our efforts:

Nashville Naturally: Open Space Plan In Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is one city hit hard by flooding in recent years. Thanks to Mayor Karl Dean and the Land Trust for Tennessee, Nashville is on the forefront of a national trend to green urban areas. They chose the Fund to lead the development of an open space plan. The result? Nashville Naturally, the most progressive open space protection strategy in the Southeast.

Greenseams: Flood Management In Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The Fund works with the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District to implement the District’s Greenseams program, an ambitious initiative to conserve water and prevent flooding through land protection.

Greening The Crossroads: The Green Infrastructure Plan For Central Indiana

After central Indiana was hit by severe flooding in 2008, the Central Indiana Land Trust decided to develop a regional conservation vision with the Fund's help. In 2010, we designed a green infrastructure network that highlights more than 300,000 acres of land in need of protection.

Upper Ouchita National Wildlife Management Area, Louisiana

The Upper Ouachita is the site of the largest floodplain restoration project in the United States. Learn about our efforts to acquire land to add to the Upper Ouachita NWR and help the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service restore forestland to the refuge.

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, Maryland

The Fund has been working for more than two decades to help Blackwater NWR acquire and restore wetlands and forestland in an effort to deal with rising sea levels and continual flooding.

Reforestation At Marais Des Cygnes National Wildlife Refuge

A Q & A with U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Tim Menard answers questions about our work at the Marais Des Cygnes NWR in Kansas and Missouri. The benefits of our Go Zero program's reforestation efforts here include stabilizing the top soil and slowing the rate of runoff, thereby helping to reduce effects of flooding along the Marais des Cygnes River.

The Center for Conservation and Development pioneers unique solutions to environmental protection by encouraging better development decisions. Faced with the accelerating consumption and fragmentation of land across all 50 states, the Center offers creative projects and models that balance social, economic, and environmental interests. The Center works with private, public, and nonprofit partners to conserve significant natural resources and build better communities. Through the Center's initiatives, we seek to achieve a healthy economic return and conservation benefits.

Conservation Development

The Center engages private, public, and nonprofit landowners and developers and works with them to foster, promote, and document environmentally friendly development practices. The Conservation Development initiatives include:

• The Partnership for Conservation Development
  In partnership with the National Town Builders Association we are working to create desirable, successful communities with outstanding conservation outcomes.
• Conservation-Based Affordable Housing
  Following on the heels of the first national study of Conservation-Based Affordable Housing the Center both identifies models and promotes strategies that enable communities to have quality affordable housing for low- and moderate-income residents while protecting their treasured conservation lands.

Better Models for Development

The Center challenges both existing and new communities to realize better development choices, providing Better Models resources including:

• Better Models for Development Publications
  An ongoing series of publications guides communities across the United States in realizing the economic value of preserving and enhancing their unique sense of place. Commonsense principles illustrated by numerous comparative photographs demonstrate more attractive, efficient, and profitable alternatives to conventional development.
• Better Models for Development Outreach and Training
  The Center provides targeted services to states, regions and local communities. Learn more about how this is being done in Pennsylvania, where the Center is helping businesses, local and state governments, and civic groups realize development opportunities that will complement their unique landscape character and heritage.

Land Advisory Services

For select signature projects, the Fund’s Land Advisory Services team provides planning and consulting services to create exceptional places that meet quality of life goals, protect sensitive resources, support healthy and diverse communities, and achieve financial objectives.

Our Conservation Commitment: Additional Resources

Underpinning the Center’s engagement in development is the strongest commitment to achieving solid conservation outcomes and building the leadership capacity of those stewards of our community heritage and natural resources. The Center works in partnership with other Conservation Fund programs including:

• Conservation Leadership Network
• Strategic Conservation Planning
• Sustainable Tourism/Balancing Nature and Commerce

The Conservation Fund offers a number of print publications, videos, DVDs and free online resources on a number of conservation topics.

Browse our publications and resources:

• By Topic
• By Type

A list of all publications for purchase is also available in PDF form. (Download PDF - 1MB).

Note: Our online publication and resource webpages are updated periodically. Please visit these pages for the most complete list of online resources and publications.

Even if you’re just learning about The Conservation Fund, chances are you already know many places we’ve helped protect—national parks, Civil War battlefields, recreation destinations of all kinds. For more than 25 years, we’ve combined a passion for conservation with an entrepreneurial spirit to protect your favorite places before they become just a memory.

To save land and sustain communities, our team supplies conservation strategy and tools. When local leaders wanted to expand a park in Pennsylvania, for instance, our real estate team managed the purchase of the land. When Nashville’s mayor needed a plan to protect the city’s best natural features, our land use planners designed it. And when 11 low-income Michigan counties needed a more reliable supply of fresh food, our community development team found the funds to help disadvantaged farmers succeed.

We know that for conservation to last, it needs to make economic sense. We invite you to learn more about our efforts across America, from the places we protect to our part in fighting climate change and improving our nation’s green infrastructure. These are just a few examples of what we do at The Conservation Fund every day.