California restoration project turns sinking farmland into wetlands

The Nature Conservancy has purchased an island in California's Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and converted thousands of acres of drained farmland into rice paddies and wetlands to slow land subsidence and restore habitat, reversing centuries of agricultural drainage that released carbon dioxide and caused the peat soil to sink.

The project addresses one island in the Delta; scaling this approach across the region would require additional land acquisition and coordination.