Native Plant Conservation Campaign News: Texas Prairie Demonstrates that Native Plants Help Buffer Floods and Hurricanes – at a Fraction of the Cost
September 6, 2016
Katy Prairie near Huston was under water during the “Tax Day Flood” this year. Native grasses, whose root systems can extend belowground 10 feet or more, and the rest of the native prairie absorbed immense quantities of water which otherwise would have flooded communities downstream. An article in the Houston Chronicle cited a recent flood control district study quantifying the Katy Prairie flood-mitigation performance.
The article also discussed how other types of native plant communities, from small “rain gardens” within urban areas such as San Francisco, to vast coastal wetlands along hurricane-prone shorelines, capture flood water and buffer severe storms.
Flood and storm control are just two of the
many vital ecosystem services that are by-products of conserving and restoring native plant communities. Native plants provide these services at a fraction of the cost of conventional measures such as sea walls and dykes. Other ecosystem services supplied by native plants include pollinator habitat, water purification, greenhouse gas capture, and climate mitigation.
One Huston area advocate noted: “We can also use native plants in our communities to help make the urban fabric more sponge-like…. And they create a more verdant, healthy habitat for humans, too. Let’s not forget that increasing the presence of nature in cities has been shown to lessen the intensity and extent of urban heat islands.”
