Richmond Landcare Inc. (RLI), a network of around 60 Landcare groups within the Richmond River catchment, is leading a pilot project funded by the National Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Ready Fund, administered through the Reconstruction Authority. The Nature-based Solutions (NBS): Building Flood Resilience in the Lismore Catchment project demonstrates how revegetating riparian zones and floodplains in upper catchment streams can reduce downstream flood impacts while improving water quality, biodiversity, carbon uptake, and climate resilience.
Grounded in community experience restoring degraded land, the project integrates local knowledge and citizen science through a Community Advisory Group (CAG) comprising Landcare group representatives. This group co-designed planting strategies, identified 31 native “flood champion” species, and advised on dense planting to slow water flow and enhance infiltration. In partnership with Southern Cross University, Australian National University, Macquarie University, and North Coast Local Land Services the project is developing hydrodynamic models calibrated with citizen science data to model flood peak reductions, alongside research on carbon, biodiversity and waterway credit methodologies and the carbon value of avoided erosion.
Further, RLI is collaborating with the Widjabul wia-bal Gurrumbil Aboriginal Corporation Native Title group and Ngulingah Local Aboriginal Land Council to embed cultural values, objectives and outcomes in waterway management. The project will culminate in a culturally informed prospectus identifying areas for future NBS projects, to mitigate flood risk for downstream communities—demonstrating that community-led revegetation offers a scalable, nature-based pathway to flood resilience, climate adaptation, and ecological restoration.