At the crack of dawn in California’s Central Valley, birds sing their morning songs and critters chirp unabashedly. In a shady grove next to a river, an owl swoops down from the spindling branches of an oak tree that has stood its ground for centuries. A few feet above the tree’s base, its massive trunk is lined with a white ring, indicating how high the San Joaquin River rose during a flood last year.
Dos Rios is supposed to flood — it’s a floodplain, recently transformed into California's newest state park. The park opened this summer, emerging among the never-ending rows of agriculture the valley is known for. It's a lush 2.
5 square miles now bursting with hundreds of thousands of native trees, bushes and animals. Dos Rios, named for the Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers that meet at the edge of the park, is the first new California state park in more than a decade. But it isn’t like most state parks.
In addition to bringing much-needed green space to an underserved area, its unusual design uses nature-based climate solutions that reinvigorate native wildlife. By restoring the natural floodplain, the park will also help mitigate flooding that threatens residents in the area. Dos Rios is like a time machine.
Just 15 years ago, this plot of land looked much like its surroundings. “These floodplains were once laser-leveled fields that grew alfalfa, or a rotation of corn and winter wheat, which would be harvested and moved over to where the dairies are to feed the co.