Official Web Site of the City of Phoenix

Relative Location of the Phoenix Rio Saldo Project



Site Plan
An architectural rendering of the project showing the relative locations of various habitats is available below in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format:


Download the Phoenix Rio Salado Site Plan Here (490k PDF)

To download the free Acrobat Reader click here.


Restoring Native Vegetation
Visitors can now enjoy restored historical habitat in the project area in the Salt River from 16th Street westward to 19th Avenue.

Trees are a big component of the restoration efforts. Most of the native trees planted in the project area were grown from seeds and cuttings gathered from within 1/2 mile of the river bottom.

Cottonwood-willow gallery forests were historically the most abundant riparian ecosystem among low-elevation rivers of the southwest. They once flourished around the banks of the Salt River. Large areas of cottonwood and willows will grace the terraces of the Phoenix Rio Salado project area.

Another common Southwester riparian habitat, Mesquite bosques, also grace the terraces. The disappearance of once-abundant bosques this century has made the ecosystem the fourth rarest plant community of the 104 communities identified in the United States.

Other habitats in the project area include:

• Lower Sonoran Desert Palo Verde and Mesquite
• Salt Bush/Quail Bush/Burro Brush
• Aquatic Strand
• Wetland Marsh

Aquatic strand will be encouraged within the Project’s low-flow channel (LFC) and at select open-channel conveyance point located throughout the project

The project includes:

• 140 acres of mesquite bosque habitat
• 43 acres of cottonwood/willow habitat
• 65 acres of lower Sonoran habitat (paloverde and mequite association)
• 80 acres saltbush/quail bush/burro brush
• 51 acres of aquatic strand
• 200 acres of open space
• 16 acres of wetland marsh