Santa Rosa Plateau
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The Santa Rosa Plateau is an upland in Riverside County, California. It is a southeastern extension of the Santa Ana Mountains, and is bounded by the fast-growing Inland Empire cities of Murrieta to the northeast and Temecula to the southeast.
The plateau is home to several native plant communities, including bunchgrass prairie, Engelmann Oak woodlands, coastal sage scrub, and vernal pools, which are increasingly rare in urbanized Southern California. The Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve preserves approximately 8400 acres of the plateau. The reserve was assembled in several stages; two parcels, comprising 3100 acres, were purchased by The Nature Conservancy in 1984. The intervening parcels were purchased in the 1990s by the State of California, the Riverside County Regional Park and Open Space District, and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Although the parcels remain under the ownership of separate agencies, they are managed cooperatively, with biological resource management, which includes a prescribed fire and habitat restoration programs, managed by the Nature Conservancy, and visitor management, which includes operation of a visitor center and a 40-mile trail system, managed by the Riverside County Regional Park and Open Space District.
