Wetlands
As our climate becomes increasingly unpredictable, heavy rainfall can disrupt our infrastructure and our ecosystem. Introducing bioswales into concrete structures can decrease damage from water runoff and help to cleanse polluted water before it reaches our rivers.
Oak Savannah
For thousands of years, Indigenous caretakers actively tended the oak savannas of the Willamette Valley — burning with intention, harvesting with care, building a reciprocal relationship with the land that sustained both people and ecosystem. This was not wilderness. It was a garden at landscape scale.
Oak savannas rank among the most biodiverse ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest — filtering air and water, feeding hundreds of species, storing carbon in deep root systems, and reducing wildfire risk through open canopy structure. Only about 1.5% of the original Willamette Valley oak savanna remains today.
At Portland State University, the PSU Oak Savanna is actively restoring this landscape in the heart of the city. The ITECK Program — Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge — guides the work, returning native plant relatives to urban soil. That work is happening now.