Ecosystem services

Your landscape can make a real difference in the climate crisis battle! Even a small urban landscape provides many important ecosystem services, including:

• Carbon sequestration
  Plants excrete carbon rich substances into the soil that serves as food for important soil organisms. Carbon sequestration has been left out of the sustainability conversation but may actually be one of the most important functions of urban, as well as natural, landscapes.
• Mitigate changing climate
  Urban areas are warming up more than rural areas. Regenerative landscapes can reduce the urban heat island effect.
• Wildlife habitat
  A regenerative landscape may include native plants that provide food and shelter for wildlife such as birds, butterflies, and pollinators and other beneficial insects.
• Water storage and filtration
  Healthy soils have good structure that allows precipitation to be captured on site where it can be filtered and stored as groundwater recharge. This prevents runoff that may overwhelm the stormwater system and dump contaminants directly into urban waterways.

Benefits for you

• Less costly to install.
• Decreasing maintenance as the landscape matures.
• Attractive.
• Can fit different style aesthetics.
• Create a sense of place through a connection to local native landscapes.
• Provide habitat for wildlife, which adds to landowner enjoyment.
• Reduced use of chemical inputs.

The Willamette Valley Regenerative Landscape Coalition

A regenerative landscape promotes processes that restore or revitalize the soil.   It has diverse, dense plant cover, and uses soil-friendly maintenance practices that:

• minimize soil disturbance
• grow living roots year round
• keep the soil covered
• increase plant biodiversity

Our members are landscape architects, designers and contractors dedicated to raising awareness of the role of soil health in ecosystem function. Some of the services our group provides include:

• We offer designs and community support to encourage the intentional design of regenerative landscapes.
• We provide education to landscape professionals and the public.
• We promote the adoption of practices that improve soil function and increase carbon sequestration.