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Restoring Rivers. Protecting Water. Sustaining Life.

Clean River Alliance

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Left Behind by the Levee: How Climate Change Is Widening the Flood Divide in America's Riverside Communities
Cover story

Left Behind by the Levee: How Climate Change Is Widening the Flood Divide in America's Riverside Communities

As climate change accelerates the frequency and severity of catastrophic flooding, rural and low-income riverfront communities face a compounding crisis: aging infrastructure, underfunded floodplain management, and decades of deferred investment. This investigation explores why the burden of flood risk falls hardest on those least equipped to bear it—and how river restoration offers a more equitable path forward.

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Latest Articles

Where the River Runs, Work Follows: How Restoration Projects Are Rebuilding Rural Economies 02
River Science & Ecology

Where the River Runs, Work Follows: How Restoration Projects Are Rebuilding Rural Economies

Across post-industrial and rural communities in the United States, river restoration projects are doing far more than healing damaged ecosystems — they are generating durable, place-based employment that outlasts the boom-and-bust cycles of extractive industries. From Appalachian hollows to Pacific Northwest timber towns, a new restoration economy is taking root along the water's edge.
The Vanishing Foundation: How Aquifer Depletion Is Quietly Draining America's Rivers From Below 03
River Science & Ecology

The Vanishing Foundation: How Aquifer Depletion Is Quietly Draining America's Rivers From Below

Beneath the fields and cities of the American interior, a silent emergency is unfolding. Decades of unchecked groundwater extraction are severing the hidden lifeline that keeps rivers flowing through droughts, dry seasons, and the increasingly punishing heat of a changing climate. Without confronting what lies beneath the surface, river restoration efforts risk treating symptoms while the underlying disease goes untreated.
Blind Spots in the Basin: The Crumbling State of America's River Monitoring Infrastructure 04
River Science & Ecology

Blind Spots in the Basin: The Crumbling State of America's River Monitoring Infrastructure

Across the United States, a fragmented and chronically underfunded network of river monitoring stations is leaving communities dangerously uninformed about the health of their waterways. Critical gaps in data collection mean contamination events can go undetected for days, weeks, or even months. This investigation examines why the system is failing—and who is stepping in to fill the void.
Daylighting the Forgotten: How American Cities Are Liberating Their Buried Rivers 05
Water Quality & Public Health

Daylighting the Forgotten: How American Cities Are Liberating Their Buried Rivers

Beneath the streets of dozens of American cities, rivers that were buried in concrete pipes and channelized decades ago are beginning to see sunlight again. A growing movement to restore urban waterways is transforming stormwater liabilities into vibrant green corridors that reduce flooding, filter pollution, and reconnect communities with the living systems beneath their feet. The ecological and economic evidence is now compelling enough to demand a national rethinking of how cities relate to t
River Science & Ecology

When Salmon Return, Forests Listen: What One Migratory Fish Teaches Us About River Restoration

Salmon are far more than a commercially prized fish — they are living architects of entire ecosystems. From the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest to the reviving river corridors of the Great Lakes, tracking salmon populations offers scientists and conservationists one of the most reliable measures of watershed health available. Their story is ultimately a story about what rivers can become when we choose restoration over extraction.
The Long Journey of a Nitrogen Molecule: Tracing Farm Runoff from Midwest Fields to Gulf Coast Dead Zones 07
Water Quality & Public Health

The Long Journey of a Nitrogen Molecule: Tracing Farm Runoff from Midwest Fields to Gulf Coast Dead Zones

Every spring, snowmelt and rainfall carry millions of tons of agricultural nitrogen and phosphorus off Midwest croplands and into America's river networks, beginning a months-long journey that ends in oxygen-depleted coastal waters where marine life cannot survive. The Gulf of Mexico's hypoxic dead zone — sometimes larger than the state of New Jersey — is the most visible consequence of a nutrient pollution crisis that implicates farm policy, infrastructure investment, and the choices made on in
Invisible Threat: The Microplastic Contamination Silently Moving Through Every American Watershed 08
Water Quality & Public Health

Invisible Threat: The Microplastic Contamination Silently Moving Through Every American Watershed

Microplastics have been detected in rivers from the Mississippi to the Colorado, in the drinking water of major cities, and even in the blood and lung tissue of human beings. Despite mounting scientific alarm, these synthetic particles remain almost entirely unregulated in the United States. Understanding where they come from—and what they do once they enter a watershed—is the first step toward demanding the policy response this crisis requires.
Breaking the Concrete: How Strategic Dam Removal Is Rewriting the Future of American Rivers 09
River Science & Ecology

Breaking the Concrete: How Strategic Dam Removal Is Rewriting the Future of American Rivers

Across the United States, engineers, ecologists, and policymakers are dismantling aging dams and watching rivers heal themselves with remarkable speed. Beyond restoring fish populations and natural sediment flow, dam removal is emerging as a powerful and underutilized tool in the broader fight against climate change. The science is compelling—and the momentum is growing.
River Science & Ecology

Oxygen Starved: How America's Rivers Are Choking—and the Science-Backed Path to Recovery

Across the United States, stretches of once-thriving rivers are quietly becoming watery deserts—zones so depleted of dissolved oxygen that fish, invertebrates, and entire ecological communities cannot survive. The forces driving this crisis are well understood, and so are the solutions. What remains lacking is the political will and public urgency to act.
From Source to Faucet: 7 Emerging Contaminants Threatening Your Municipal Water Supply 11
Water Quality & Public Health

From Source to Faucet: 7 Emerging Contaminants Threatening Your Municipal Water Supply

Most Americans turn on their taps without a second thought, trusting that what flows out has been rendered safe by modern treatment technology. That trust is not entirely misplaced—but it is increasingly incomplete. A growing class of contaminants is reaching household faucets largely undetected, and the regulatory frameworks designed to catch them have not kept pace.