LA County Chief Sustainability Office

Employ and encourage efficient water use.

In addition to capturing and reusing water that flows to the LA River, perhaps the most direct method of improving local water supply reliability is to simply use less. Water conservation and efficient water use—from using more efficient fixtures and appliances…

Utilize the County’s Affordable Housing Coordinating Committee to review and advise on housing and community stabilization strategies along the river.

Ensuring that river improvements strengthen communities without contributing to housing affordability challenges requires a complex balancing act and the best strategies are likely to change. Ongoing input from impacted communities will help guide the evolution of this strategy over time.

Increase safe transportation routes to the river.

Ensuring that there are clear, safe, direct connections from neighborhoods to the LA River makes nearby neighbors more likely to use the river and, by extension, the broader LA County network of parks and trails that the river connects to. The…

Use the river corridor as a living laboratory where ongoing innovation is encouraged.

Due to the broad range of conditions along the LA River, it is an ideal place to test varied ecosystem strategies. A living laboratory also provides opportunities for education and community participation in various strategies. Several organizations and schools have already…

Use environmentally responsible practices for operations and maintenance of the river channel and adjacent lands.

Healthy, connected urban ecosystems rely not just on large physical investments but on more regular operations and maintenance practices. Environmentally friendly practices and products are widely available today. However, their application often differs from the use of their traditional counterparts, highlighting…

Encourage cities along the river to adopt sustainability strategies.

Adopting sustainability strategies that encourage the use of best practices in the construction, maintenance, and operation of public projects can decrease a city’s environmental footprint, reduce long-term costs, and improve the relationships between buildings and their surrounding environments. In addition to…

Create a connective network of habitat patches and corridors to facilitate the movement of wildlife and support a diverse resilient ecological community.

Habitat patches are discrete areas, whereas habitat corridors are linear linkages that ensure connectivity between patches. While patches are valuable and important for birds and insect species, enhancing and interconnecting urban habitat patches with larger habitat areas beyond the LA River…

Increase plant species biodiversity, and focus on the use of local California native plants in and around the river corridor.

Individual plants do not exist in isolation. They exist within the context of other plant species, soils, microclimates, and wildlife, and each has a specific function within the larger ecosystem. The more diversity within an ecosystem, the more robust and resilient…

Repurpose single-use spaces, such as power-line easements, rail rights-of-way, or flood infrastructure, to serve multiple functions such as multi-use trails or habitat, and prioritize spaces that are in high and very high park need areas.

With little vacant land and relatively high property values and construction costs, LA County cannot afford to have spaces that serve only a single purpose. Multiple uses of space are necessary to ensure benefits outweigh costs.

Implement consistent floodplain management practices across the region.

Floodplain management is fundamental to reducing losses from floods. Adopting regionally consistent floodplain management practices, such as managing development in the floodplain, will help to reduce potential catastrophic flood damage and improve community resilience to flooding.

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