Great Plains Projects

Platte River Initiative

Our Goals
Build a riverscape throughout the Platte River Basin that sustains thriving local communities and the ecosystems that birds depend on through trusting partnerships, community engagement, habitat restoration, and science-driven decision-making that balances numerous water needs in a changing climate.
What We’re Doing
Covening partners and leveraging knowledge across the Platte River Basin to protect streamflow, wetlands, and prairies; manage water sustainably; enhance economic and community well-being; and drive science-based, collaborative conservation.
Sandhill Cranes at sunset, viewed from a discovery station along the Platte River at Iain Nicolson Audubon Center at Rowe Sanctuary in Gibbon, Nebraska, March 14, 2022. Every March, over a million Sandhill Cranes converge on the Platte River Valley in central Nebraska to fuel up before continuing north to their nesting grounds.

Stretching across the Central Flyway, the Platte River supports a growing multitude of demands that have dramatically diminished priority habitat and diverted up to 70% of available streamflow.

Through science-based collaboration across Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska, the Platte River Initiative embodies the kind of large-scale, cross-sector partnership needed to secure resilient ecosystems and thriving bird populations in a highly managed river basin that will face further stress under a changing climate. At its core, this is a habitat-centered initiative. Audubon takes action to protect, restore, and enhance key ecosystems along the Platte River Basin, which are essential for migratory and resident birds, pollinators, and aquatic species.

Unlike many short-term or single-species projects, the Platte River Initiative embraces a landscape-level conservation model, focusing on ecosystem function and resilience. This proactive, science-driven management enhances biodiversity while supporting agriculture, ecotourism, power production, municipal growth, and recreation—mirroring Audubon’s holistic vision of healthy habitats that serve the needs of both birds and people. 

Audubon’s commitment to building ecological resilience across the Platte River Basin also encompasses climate adaptation, planning, and mitigation. We take the lead in climate conversations and work with community partners to integrate natural climate solutions that will safeguard both communities and ecosystems. Wetlands, prairies, and riparian zones restored through Audubon’s conservation efforts sequester carbon, improve water retention, and reduce the impacts of both intense drought and large precipitation events.  By looking at conservation as a process that adapts over time, Audubon shows how regional partnerships can translate long-term climate strategy into on-the-ground results 

The Platte River Initiative recognizes that sustainable water management requires policy innovation and informed governance. Audubon seeks to influence how the Platte River is managed at the basin scale—beyond the constraints of outdated regulatory frameworks that prioritize short-term water use over ecological health. Through unified messaging and collaborative partnerships, Audubon builds the case for adaptive policies that integrate ecosystem needs with human demands. This is how long-term conservation goals become durable—embedded in decision-making at local, state, and federal levels. 

By fostering dialogue across boundaries—geographic, institutional, and cultural—the Platte River Initiative strengthens the public will needed to support long-term policy and conservation outcomes. It protects habitat, addresses climate impacts, shapes policy through science, and unites communities around a common goal: a resilient Platte River system that sustains both wildlife and people for generations to come.