Protecting Virginia's water, one forest, streambank, and community at a time

Water is a foundational need for any ecosystem. All living things need it, and maintaining a clean, abundant water supply is vital for humans to survive and thrive, collectively and individually. Forests play a critical role in providing clean water across Virginia. They stabilize soil, filter rainfall, slow runoff, and regulate how water moves across the landscape. Because private landowners manage the majority of Virginia’s forestland, their decisions directly affect the health of streams, rivers, wetlands, and groundwater.

The College of Natural Resources and Environment houses the Virginia Cooperative Extension education programs focusing on that connection between forests and water. The Virginia Forest Landowner Education Program, the Virginia SHARP Logger Program, Virginia Master Naturalists, and the urban forestry in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation are programs designed and implemented with the help of local agents in every municipality to achieve big picture, long term goals by engaging in individual, finely focused efforts.

Every aspect of water resource management includes protection or expansion of riparian buffers, the trees and vegetation along streams and rivers that slow runoff, trap nutrients and sediment, stabilize streambanks, reduce flooding, cool water, and provide wildlife habitats. They are among the most effective management practices that can be easily implemented.

These natural areas between water and hard surface are critical for protecting water quality in streams, rivers, the Chesapeake Bay and coastal waters.

Cleaning a creek bank is a small, local effort that fits in with an overall effort to preserve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay for fisheries and other uses vital to the citizens and economy of the commonwealth.

Extension helps landowners understand why these buffers matter and how to install them by partnering with programs such as the James River Buffer Program and the Riparian Forests for Landowners Program, administered by the Virginia Department of Forestry, that provide design, planting, and maintaining support, removing financial and technical barriers and helping landowners take action.

These programs work with forest landowners in the middle and upper James River watershed to design, install, and maintain forested buffers at no cost to the landowner. The program covers site assessment, buffer design, tree planting, and several years of follow‑up maintenance, in exchange for a commitment to keep the area forested for at least 15 years. Plantings are tailored to each site and use native trees and shrubs that support both clean water and wildlife.

Together, these programs remove financial and technical barriers that often keep landowners from installing buffers, reinforcing Virginia Forest Landowner Education Program’s core educational message with practical, on‑the‑ground solutions.