The Wetlands Initiative

On-the-ground restoration - over 2022, The Wetlands Initiative's on-the-ground ecological restoration work continued to grow across both rural and urban settings. At The 3,000-acre sue and wes dixon waterfowl refuge in north-central Illinois, a designated ramsar wetland of international importance, twi began The second year of intensive restoration of native prairie, wet meadow, and woodland habitats on The 292-acre violet meadow tract located in The site's northeastern corner. A low-impact hiking trail, to open to The public in 2023, will lead visitors through violet meadow's varied habitats and culminate in a low birding platform with views over The restored marsh. As in-person events again became feasible, 2022 saw an expansion in volunteer activities that twi offered at The refuge, including a special pollinator bioblitz during which expert entomologists and citizen scientists found more than 270 types of insect pollinators, helping to catalogue The refuge's biodiversity. Finally, in 2022 twi ecologists completed a 10-year case study analyzing differences in The refuge's restored wet and mesic prairie plant communities between 2008 and 2018, which found significant increases in native species richness and The mean native floristic quality index (fqi) over The decade. At midewin national tallgrass prairie in will county, The largest protected open space in The chicago metropolitan region and The nation's first national tallgrass prairie, twi completed The sixth year of a massive seven-year restoration project in partnership with The national forest foundation and The u.s. forest service. In 2022, on-the-ground invasive management, native planting, and removal of man-made infrastructure expanded to The project's full 1,960 acres on midewin's west side. Ultimately, this vast contiguous area will be transformed into a high-quality, native prairie and wetland landscape at this former army ammunition plant. Finally, in 2022 twi expanded its collaborative work to restore healthy hemi-marsh for people and wildlife across The calumet region on chicago's southeast side and in northwest Indiana. These efforts offer a replicable model for how urban wetland restoration challenges in The heavily industrialized region can be overcome. Primary projects included: 1. At indian ridge marsh (irm) north in chicago, field crews from twi, The chicago park district, and audubon great lakes coordinated to reestablish native plant communities across 87.5 acres. Meanwhile, twi and its partners developed a next project phase that will build on The highly successful shoreline modification work completed in 2021 to reestablish a gradual habitat transition zone down to The marsh. 2. At deadstick pond, a degraded but high-potential 55-acre wetland near irm, twi applied its engineering and Wetlands expertise to design hydrologic improvements in partnership with audubon great lakes. 3. Along The west branch of The little calumet river floodplain corridor in northwest Indiana, twi and other members of The little calumet conservation collaborative completed invasive management to improve three high-priority parcels, made important progress on community outreach and engagement, and developed two green infrastructure projects with The city of gary that will link The surrounding neighborhoods with The broader effort.

Innovation of new strategies - over 2022, twi's landowner outreach and on-the-ground technical assistance to advance The use of constructed tile-treatment Wetlands to reduce nutrient runoff expanded in six agricultural counties in north-central Illinois. Project staff developed new partnerships with ducks unlimited and The u.s. Fish and wildlife service's partners for fish and wildlife (pfw) program in Illinois to identify opportunities to unite water quality improvement goals with creating more wildlife habitat on marginal farm ground. The new collaborations had their first success in august 2022 when a landowner in livingston county installed a dual wetland system on their property using a hybrid design that will provide both water quality improvement and benefits for waterfowl, wildlife, and pollinators. During The wetland installation twi and partners co-hosted three different well-attended public expos to raise awareness with ag audiences. At The same time, smart Wetlands project staff built out multimodal forms of communication in 2022 to further spread The word about on-farm Wetlands to reduce nutrient loss, including social media, a blog series, and videos.the Wetlands Initiative is also increasingly planning and implementing its work with a focus on The powerful role that wetland restoration can play in ecological and societal adaptation and resilience to climate change. The midwest's climate is already shifting steadily towards more-intense rainfall events, longer dry spells, and irregular seasonal precipitation patterns. Restored freshwater Wetlands provide resilience functions and services that include storing precipitation and runoff, mitigating local flood risks, recharging groundwater supplies during droughts, filtering and processing nonpoint source pollutants, and providing habitat refuges for diverse species, as well as sequestering some atmospheric carbon in highly organic soils.