- The Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve is home to a unique horizontal levee project blending into the estuary’s natural scenery, designed to interact with Bay waters like natural estuaries do.
Visitors to the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve, captivated by gliding birds overhead and golden hills across the Bay waters, could be forgiven for failing to notice that the preserve is also home to the Bay’s newest levee.
Most levees look like steep, barren embankments or riprap-clad seawalls, designed to prevent flooding by adding extra feet of height. But this project, though it shares a name, is a different type of infrastructure altogether. Seeded with over 35 species of native plants, the site is a pilot for what’s known as a horizontal levee, or living levee, blending into the estuary’s natural scenery as it spreads its feet of added height over a longer area.
In stark contrast to a traditional levee, the Palo Alto Horizontal Levee Pilot Project’s natural appearance and gradual slope are designed to interact with Bay waters the same way natural estuaries do…