Cedar River Corridor Planning

Chronic, widespread flooding occurs in many areas along the Cedar River from its mouth at Lake Washington and extending 20+ miles upstream. Herrera led a collaborative, multidisciplinary planning process with input from biologists, engineers, geomorphologists, land use planners, hydraulic modelers, stakeholder outreach specialists, and recreation experts. We synthesized existing information to fully characterize existing conditions with respect to flooding, channel migration and bank erosion, aquatic and riparian habitat, and human uses and services, and used the results to determine high-priority areas for future river and floodplain management attention based on GIS modeling. We worked with County staff to identify potential solutions for the higher priority areas in the corridor and prepared conceptual designs and cost estimates for a variety of future actions. The result is a capital investment strategy, vetted by a project advisory committee representing interests in all of the land uses and infrastructure at risk in the river valley, that will guide the County’s investments in a variety of actions for the next ten years.