Nature Returns: Striking Before-and-After Photos Show Life Flourishing at Lower Long Bar

Three years after SYRCL’s restoration efforts, the Yuba River floodplain is thriving with new growth and renewed hope.

Recently, Danielle Conway, SYRCL’s Fisheries Restoration Program Manager, conducted photopoint surveys at our Lower Long Bar Restoration site and collected some exciting pictures throughout the entire project area.

Photopoint surveys are a common qualitative practice, particularly in restoration. You select GPS locations throughout the project site where you expect to see change, navigate to that point prior to implementation, take photos in the four cardinal directions, and then repeat after construction.

In this case, pre-project photos were taken in February 2021, and post-project photos were taken in December 2022 — about a month after implementation was completed. Danielle repeated the whole process again in June of 2025. These latest photos demonstrate the dramatic positive changes that have occurred at the restoration site in the years following implementation.

All vegetation that appears in the 2025 photos that is not seen in 2022 has been naturally recruited, which is one of the many expected positive outcomes of reconnecting floodplains to the main channel river.

A healthy riparian vegetation community is important because it provides shade which cools water temperatures, creates complexity in the floodplain, and sequesters carbon.