The Central Asheville Watershed Restoration Plan provides a comprehensive framework for improving water quality and restoring watershed health within one of Asheville’s most complex urban watersheds. Blue Earth led the multidisciplinary consultant team that developed the plan for RiverLink in partnership with the City of Asheville.

The approximately two-square-mile watershed includes three primary streams—Town Branch, Bacoate Branch, and Haith Branch—all of which ultimately flow to the French Broad River. The watershed encompasses a diverse urban landscape and faces interconnected environmental, infrastructure, economic, and social challenges. Stormwater runoff from developed areas, aging infrastructure, altered and piped stream channels, and historical pollution have all affected watershed health.

The year-long planning effort evaluated existing watershed and water-quality conditions and developed a comprehensive restoration plan to guide future improvements. Blue Earth coordinated a multidisciplinary team with expertise in watershed planning, stream restoration, stormwater management, environmental assessment, landscape architecture, and related disciplines.

Rather than focusing on a single site, the project used a watershed-scale approach, identifying opportunities for restoration throughout the drainage area and establishing a framework that RiverLink and its partners could use to guide future investments in water quality and watershed health. The resulting plan connects individual projects and actions to the larger goal of improving the health of the French Broad River and its tributaries.

The project demonstrates Blue Earth’s approach to watershed planning: understanding water as an interconnected system and combining engineering, environmental science, community context, and practical implementation strategies to move from watershed assessment toward meaningful restoration.

For more information about the project and to explore the story map, please visit RiverLink’s website here.