Beavers mitigate extreme weather impacts on wetland ecosystems

Rapid climate change has led to more frequent and extreme weather events, placing significant stress on emergency services, infrastructure and ecosystems. Although human activities have greatly disrupted native species ranges across the United States, beavers create and restore wetlands and are increasingly recognized as an effective natural climate solution.

Researchers measured the positive impacts of beavers on river bank habitats in Salinas River area in California by comparing three beaver-inhabited sites with five reference areas. They selected beaver sites using GBIF-mediated citizen science data and used normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) measurements collected through remote sensing to evaluate sites before and after extreme drought (2021–2022) and extreme flooding events (2022–2023).

NDVI revealed beaver-influenced wetland areas consistently had higher vegetation greenness than non-beaver sites throughout normal, drought and post-flood periods. Despite dam breaches during flooding, beaver areas maintained greater structural complexity and recovered faster than reference sites.

Though previously seen as pests, these findings indicate that beavers have an extremely positive effect on environmental restoration, leading to increased climate resilience. Results support a growing shift toward beaver-based restoration to boost ecosystem resilience in fragmented, climate-stressed landscapes buffer ecosystems against climate extremes.