Protect your property with riparian buffers

Protecting Virginia’s waterways starts right here on you property. Riparian buffers, strips of trees, shrubs, or grasses planted along streams and
rivers.

Help keep our water clean by filtering runoff, trapping sediment, and reducing pollutants before they reach local waterways and the Chesapeake Bay.

These natural buffers also:

  • Help stabilize streambanks and reduce erosion
  • Filter excess nutrients and improve water quality
  • Provide valuable habitat for wildlife and support biodiversity

The Virginia Agricultural Best Management Practices Cost-Share Program can help landowners install these conservation practices through financial assistance:

  • Forested buffers – Up to 95% cost-share reimbursement, plus incentive payments of up to $580 per acre.
  • Grass filter strips – Up to 100% cost-share reimbursement, plus an additional $80 per acre incentive.

Healthy streams mean healthier communities, thriving farms, and a stronger Chesapeake Bay.

Contact your local Soil and Water Conservation District to learn how you can participate.

For more news from across the Shenandoah Valley, click here. 

DOF offers free riparian buffer installations

Virginia Department of Forestry used by permission from VDF Communication Specialist Cory Swift-Turner

The Virginia Department of Forestry is offering Virginia landowners free riparian forest buffer installations and a year of maintenance through a new program.

Riparian forest buffers are specialized plantings that help protect water sources from harmful runoff by capturing sediment and pollutants in the soil.

The installations also support cleaner air, reduce erosion, and prevent flooding.

Nearly 200 acres of buffers were installed in the first year of the Riparian Forests for Landowners program and more than $1.15 million in funding is now available for the 2025-2027 contract year.

RFFL is open to all land owners, homeowners associations, or civic leagues and eligible projects are funded on a first come, first serve basis with planned buffer establishment from Fall 2025 – Spring 2026 and follow up maintenance through 2027.

A link to fill out the landowner interest form is available here.

Then a Department of Forestry representative will contact you for more information.

For more news from across the Shenandoah Valley, click here.