In 2024, California set its first climate targets to harness the power of nature to remove and store carbon from our atmosphere, buffer climate impacts, and build California’s resilience to future climate-driven extremes including wildfire, drought, flood, extreme heat, and sea level rise.
In January 2026, the California Natural Resources Agency, with support from Trust for Public Land, hosted California’s first nature-based solutions summit. The summit brought together a diverse group of leaders to share experiences, provide insights, and celebrate progress to-date.
We are keeping the conversation going with eight landscape-specific Nature Based Solutions (NBS) summits through 2026. The eight landscape-specific summits build on these conversations by diving into the details for increasing the pace and scale of NBS implementation.
Photo: Sara Nevis, California Department of Water Resources
Advancing Thriving Farmland - July 1, 2026
California State University, Chico (Chico CA)
California’s farms cover 10% of the state and are the foundation for our global leadership in agriculture, providing nearly half of the vegetables and over three-quarters of the fruits and nuts for the United States. Conserving and stewarding farmlands presents a huge opportunity to deliver climate, water, health, and economic benefits through implementing NBS such as cover cropping, hedgerow planting, compost application, riparian restoration, pollinator habitat and more.
Photo: Jesse Pluim, Bureau of Land Management California
Shrublands - August 28, 2026
King Gillette Ranch (Calabasas, CA)
California’s largest landscape, shrublands and chaparral cover 31% of California, from the coastal sage stands along the Pacific Ocean to the deserts bordering Nevada and Arizona. Shrublands and chaparral provide carbon, biodiversity, water, and recreation benefits, but are severally threatened by too-frequent wildfire and other disturbances. Implementing of NBS in this land type can avoid catastrophic wildfire and ensure shrublands and chaparral continue to deliver benefits into the future.
Photo: John Chacon, California Department of Water Resources
Coasts - September 2, 2026
Bay Area Metro Center (San Francisco, CA)
California’s iconic coasts, including beaches and dunes, coastal wetlands, and seagrasses and seaweeds, are an economic powerhouse in California, supporting the state’s tourism and fisheries sectors and being home to several of the State’s largest cities. Ensuring the resilience and health of these landscapes through NBS is critical to protecting California’s economy, mitigating coastal flooding and storm surge, providing habitat, and storing carbon.
Photo: Clesi Bennett California Natural Resources Agency
Deserts - October 9, 2026
The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens (Palm Desert, CA)
California’s deserts are extremely unique, supporting endemic biodiversity and wildlife corridors, providing recreational opportunities, and storing carbon, specifically in long-lived, hardy shrubs. These fragile lands are threatened by disturbance and thus need NBS, such as conservation and restoration, to thrive.
Photo: Josh Baar, California Deptartment of Water Resources
Grasslands - October 16, 2026
University of California, Merced (Merced, CA)
Grasslands cover 9% of California and provide a suite of important benefits, including wildlife habitat, water filtration and storage, recreation, livestock grazing, and carbon storage. Grasslands are threatened by degradation, climate change, and conversion to development. NBS, such as conservation, prescribed grazing, and restoration, can help ensure this landscape continues to thrive into the future and deliver benefits to Californians.
Photo: Florence Low, California Department of Water Resources
Inland Wetlands - November 12, 2026
University of California, Davis (Davis, CA)
California’s small, but mighty inland wetlands, such as Delta peatlands, floodplains, and vernal pools, provide significant benefits to California. They ease the effects of drought by improving water quality and supply, recharge groundwater aquifers, mitigate flood impacts, store carbon, and provide habitat rare, native, migratory, and culturally important species. However, these wetlands have experienced significant degradation and loss in the last century; conserving and restoring them is critical to maintain the important benefits they provide.
Photo: CAL FIRE
Forests - Date TBD, 2026
Location TBD
From towering redwood and sequoia trees to expansive oak woodlands, California’s forests currently store the largest amount of carbon on California’s lands and serve as the headwaters for a large portion of the state’s water supply. Government policy of fire exclusion beginning in the early 20th century, coupled with historic timber harvesting methods, has left California’s forests vulnerable to drought, disease, insects, and catastrophic wildfire. Reintroducing beneficial fire and other NBS like conservation and restoration are critical to building the health and resilience of this important landscape.
Photo: CAL FIRE
Community - Date TBD, 2026
Location TBD
Communities cover 8% of California. These lands include a broad range of urban, suburban, and rural settings, from city centers and town squares, and provide a key opportunity to deliver climate, public health, and other benefits in the places most Californians call home. Expanded urban tree canopy and green spaces mitigate extreme heat, clean air and water, store carbon, create economic opportunities and more.
