Dr. Ellen Wohl, Colorado State University, Professor of Geosciences

&

Dr. Derek Booth, University of California Santa Barbara,

Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, Adjunct Professor

with practitioner observations from

Colin Barry, Geomorphologist at Ayres Associates

Moderator: Julie Ash, Parametrix

Read their bios.

Panelists: 

Daniel Denipah, Santa Clara Pueblo 

Anthony Culpepper, Mountain Studies Institute

Andreas Wion, Forest Stewards Guild

Kristen Pelz, Forest Inventory Analysis, USDA and Rocky Mountain Research Station

Moderator: Esmé Cadiente, Forest Stewards Guild

Read their bios.

Alex Hager, KUNC

Teal Lehto

Franklin Cruz

Read their bios.

The Intermountain West does not have enough water. The result is a familiar math problem: too little water and too great of demand. Palmer Land Conservancy brings nearly fifty years of experience in land and water conservation in the Arkansas River Basin, where competing needs including agriculture, municipal and industrial use, the environment, and recreation strain limited water resources. Palmer develops and implements solutions that meet a wide variety of community needs. This presentation will highlight the Bessemer Farmland Conservation Project, the cornerstone of Palmer's Water for Life program. For nine years, Palmer Land Conservancy has led this water optimization initiative to mitigate impacts to the local community from a mass sale of water rights in Pueblo, Colorado. Lessons learned from this project translate to water scarcity challenges across the region.

The industry of river restoration has for decades leaned on concepts of channel stability as a primary mechanism for restoring impaired river systems. So much of contemporary river restoration design and implementation focuses on stabilizing channels and streambanks as primary restoration tactics to reverse impairment or improve habitat and water quality. What is ‘stability’? Where does this emphasis come from? Is it justified and appropriate? Is stabilization moving us toward goals of improved and healthy river systems? 

There is a fundamental disconnect between restoration practice that emphasizes stability of channel and streambank form and the science that explains how river systems function and what factors and processes maintain river health. The scientific fields of study of fluvial geomorphology and aquatic and riparian ecology highlight the critical functions and interactions among channel migration, aggradation and degradation, and plant succession processes that ultimately create and maintain river health, aquatic habitat, and water quality. Rivers are inherently dynamic systems in a constant state of adjustment to maintain dynamic equilibrium – a balance of inputs and forces that maintains the character and health of the system. Yet the restoration industry broadly and regularly integrates and implements features intended to limit the dynamic state and associated channel adjustments.

This presentation will explore the mystique and folly, origins and implications of the industry emphasis on stability in river restoration to shed light on What’s Working and What’s Not and to advance Forward-Thinking Approaches to Management.

The Boulder Watershed Collective (BWC) works to cultivate partnerships and revitalize social and ecological systems. BWC intimately understands the inseparable relationships of forests and streams, wildfires and healthy riparian corridors, and ecosystems and the people living, working and recreating within them. In 2020 after large wildfires occurred in Boulder County, BWC conducted a Sediment Source and Storage Study for Disaster Planning. This study laid the groundwork for a multi-strategy approach to meadow, riparian and stream restoration - in particular, initiating BWC’s beaver coexistence and relocation projects. 

As BWC has built out the beaver reintroduction and restoration program and aspires to be a local conduit for beaver coexistence support, more could be understood about perceptions of beavers among public agency managers across the Front Range. Especially critical is determining the degree to which beaver management planning and coexistence has occurred within public agencies in conflict areas and how the perceptions of beavers have influenced management decisions. 

BWC is working with select CU Master’s Students to conduct a comprehensive summary of Front Range municipalities, water management agencies, parks districts, and other resource manager’s current perceptions of beaver management, coexistence, and the nuanced challenges and successes of public land management for beavers. This summary will reflect dozens of interviews with watershed restoration experts, agency personnel and resource managers who have been influential in guiding beaver management practices and policies across Colorado, as well as a wide-ranging survey of practitioners who are responsible for managing and mitigating conflicts with beavers. This work ultimately highlights BWC’s vision to expand beaver populations into areas they are needed for watershed restoration, while maintaining beavers across diverse sectors and providing resources, expertise, and guidance for informed, collaborative, and forward-thinking beaver management policies and decisions across various landscapes of the Front Range.

This proposed 30-minute presentation addresses a key question that both the water and stream restoration communities are asking: how does beaver restoration influence stream flow?

Beavered stream corridors influence the rate, magnitude, and timing of water and sediment movement through a watershed. Stream corridors with beaver complexes have demonstrated the ability to attenuate flood peaks and detain sediment. Impacts on non-peak stream flows (e.g., summer and fall base flows) are less straightforward.  A hydrologic and sediment monitoring program established in 2023 and sponsored in part by CWCB is evaluating surface and subsurface hydrologic and sediment response to stream rehabilitation projects across the State of Colorado whose goal is beaver recolonization, supported with beaver mimicry structures.

Six sites slated for rehabilitation in 2025 – 2026 have been instrumented with stream gaging stations bracketing the treatment reaches and groundwater elevation monitoring transects. I present my baseline findings of seasonal patterns of stream flow, water balance, and groundwater elevation, along with sediment storage. Pre-treatment, baseline data collected in 2023 and 2024 demonstrates that reach-scale water balance is net positive or gaining (Qout – Qin > 0) during the spring runoff and early summer. Then, depending on the magnitude of hillslope or tributary water inputs, as well as the depth of a confining layer, these streams typically become losing (Qout – Qin < 0) later in the summer and fall as the water table falls below the stream bed. Summer rain events can temporarily reverse this trend as can the end of the growing season when vegetation becomes dormant. A literature review of beaver pond impacts on stream base flow indicates a mixed response. I present a conceptual model of how post-restoration stream and groundwater flow may behave based on literature and observations from beavered stream corridors.

River Network, in partnership with the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) and input from several statewide non-governmental organizations (NGOs), developed a web-based Watershed Prioritization Tool to help identify and prioritize locations for watershed planning throughout Colorado. While some regions in Colorado have completed watershed planning, there are many gap areas that do not have a watershed plan. This presentation will discuss how we leveraged existing geospatial datasets to crosswalk instream flow gaps; areas of high species or ecosystem conservation value; ecological and economic impacts of flood, drought, and wildfire; and the existence of an active watershed group; among other factors. 

The tool is designed to help state agencies, NGOs, and funders more effectively allocate resources to initiate watershed planning in collaboration with active watershed groups or community-based organizations (CBOs). Additionally, it can support communities and CBOs in identifying where to focus their planning efforts.

Importantly, the tool also highlights high-priority areas that currently lack both a watershed plan and an active organizing group. This visibility can spark interest and help catalyze the formation of new local efforts. While the tool identifies geographic priorities, it does not preclude support for lower-priority areas that show strong community interest.

Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in an interactive activity using the Watershed Prioritization Tool. Together, we will walk through a hands-on exercise to explore watersheds of interest, engage with various planning layers, and review the geospatial data that informed watershed scoring. Also, attendees will be invited to participate in a brief survey to help identify and catalog active watershed groups throughout Colorado.

This tool not only guides data-informed decision-making using lessons learned from the last ten years of watershed planning but also serves as a catalyst for building stronger community connections and fostering hope for a more resilient, collaborative future for Colorado’s watersheds.

Staff from Ducks Unlimited's Great Plains and Great Lakes Atlantic regions will describe recent efforts to champion natural floodplain functions as an opportunity to mitigate flood risk while also improving wildlife habitat.  By supporting integrated river planning and community involvement, DU’s goal is to ensure the delivery of river-related ecosystem services.  As we work to promote projects at the intersection of river corridor restoration, river-floodplain connectivity, and community flood resilience, we recognize solutions to improve ecological functions will fall on a spectrum from managed to process-based.  By embracing opportunities to weave together natural and engineered solutions, we can minimize risk and optimize community benefits.
These themes will be explored through projects across Colorado and a landscape-scale initiative developed with selected mayors on the Mississippi River. Projects will be discussed from very diverse social and physical landscapes.  Yet common elements begin to emerge from these efforts.  One such element is the importance of supporting collaborative processes and communication between local governments and communities living along the river. Second is the development of a baseline understanding of ecosystem condition, site-specific stressors, and honest conversations about the difference between reference and potential future conditions. A third common element is the need to build connections between river practitioners, hazard and emergency mitigation planners, and floodplain resource managers.
In closing, we will solicit audience participation to explore current challenges such as:
How can we…
• Better communicate the value of individual projects, which independently may not appear to reduce flood risk, but collectively mitigate flood impacts to vulnerable communities?
• Leverage existing networks, plans, and professional knowledge to conduct semi-rapid planning to enable both planning and project development to occur in close succession. 
• Quantify the ecosystem service values of nature-based solutions to mitigate flood risk and explore their merit and recognition in corporate sustainability goals?

Patience, persistence, and partnership are proving essential to the success of a beaver meadow restoration effort, 12 years in the making, along Fish Creek in Estes Park, Colorado. What began as a setback—regulatory constraints—became an opportunity to pivot a one-off reach-scale restoration project into a multi-year, phased adaptive management project. This shift by the Estes Valley Watershed Coalition (EVWC) enabled the implementation of a pre-restoration monitoring plan, generating valuable baseline data to guide future phases of beaver meadow restoration along the Fish Creek corridor. 

EVWC brought together private landowners, local volunteers, academics, consultants, and private industry to contribute labor, funding, in-kind donations, research, and technical support. Each phase of the project became a public touchpoint, strengthening community ownership and understanding of the restoration project.

By embracing an unexpected longer timeline, EVWC created space for continual learning supported by meaningful pre- and post-restoration monitoring that will inform future beaver meadow restoration activities across the state. This presentation will share lessons from the Fish Creek beaver restoration project and introduce a restoration model that moves beyond “one and done” projects in favor of longer-term, larger-scale projects. This restoration model highlights how partnerships among funders, academics, community groups, and industry, paired with phased implementation, monitoring, and adaptive management, can drive effective watershed restoration.

The San Miguel Watershed Coalition (SMWC) is nearing completion of a hydrologic tool for the San Miguel River watershed that can be used to quantify water availability under a changing climate, simulate hydrologic response to wildfire, evaluate the effectiveness of conservation efforts, and simulate other water management actions. The current U.S. Drought Monitor lists the San Miguel watershed as being in severe (D2) and extreme (D3) drought. Communities along the river want to protect water resources across all sectors to preserve the economic and environmental well-being of the basin. Existing tools do not provide the groundwater and climate-driven surface water dynamics needed to improve our understanding of ecohydrologic interactions and watershed resilience. The code used to create the model, MIKE SHE, is a fully integrated groundwater-surface water-climate modeling program that simulates the complex stream-groundwater interactions are needed to predict how realistic future changes in land use and climate will impact the system.

This living hydrologic tool will be housed locally by a nonprofit, and will allow stakeholders to evaluate the viability of proposed innovative solutions that balance water demands across agriculture, municipal, industrial, and environmental sectors, and will allow the community to plan for current and future water demands. A high-resolution sub-model of the Beaver Creek watershed has been created to evaluate the potential hydrologic impacts of wildfire. SMWC has also trained a graduate student on the model and hosted a two-day workshop on the model aimed at building the regional labor force and creating a water-fluent public. The level of interest in the project is high, based on the list of projects requested to be run after the model is completed, including drought and post-fire planning, water quality evaluations, floodplain restoration, and creative agreements to protect fish.

This presentation will describe the Mile High Flood District’s (MHFD) approach to answering this question: How much room does an urban stream need? Stream Management Corridors (SMCs) have been defined throughout MHFD’s service area to protect and preserve urban stream corridors while also identifying an overall width that accounts for MHFD’s five elements of urban stream function (hydrology, hydraulics, geomorphology, vegetation, and community values). These corridors prevent development from encroaching into the broad floodplain thereby allowing natural geomorphic processes to shape streams in urbanized settings. MHFD originally developed SMCs for all streams in the District’s service area with watersheds greater than 130 acres using a threshold planning approach based on each stream’s shear stress and an automated GIS analysis. However, MHFD identified areas within their service area where the shear force-based approach resulted in unrealistic SMC widths. A working group, convened by MHFD to review the shear force-based method, evaluated alternative methods, and recommended a path forward. The presentation will discuss the technical outcomes of working group’s evaluation, including selecting a regression-based analysis using widths from topographically derived valley bottoms and contributing drainage basin areas. To delineate an equation to map continuous SMC width based on upstream drainage area, we generated nonlinear (power law) regression equations between these variables: upstream drainage area values were provided by the MHFD stream network, and associated widths were provided by the valley bottom extraction tool (VBET) dataset. The nonlinear regression equations were used to calculate and plot widths in GIS as a continuous function of drainage area in acres. MHFD will provide these planning-level SMCs on their GIS mapping platform for local communities to help guide planning and design decisions.

Alluvial fans are part of a continuum of features that can be present within a watershed and are found consistently across Colorado. Colorado has implemented fluvial hazard assessment methods that recognize alluvial fans as part of a broad array of hazardous features to consider within riverine corridors. Recently, numerous states and counties have mapped or are actively mapping alluvial fans. The contemporary appreciation of alluvial fans as part of the spectrum of geohazards places greater impetus on identifying, assessing processes, and understanding the associated flood hazards present in these features. While this may appear to be rather straightforward, alluvial fans are complex features resulting from physical processes operating in the watershed, external factors (climate, tectonics, etc.) impacting the broader environmental context, and internal controls within the alluvial fan that often play a significant role in the flood hazards. These items and others have been consistently and increasingly studied by the scientific community over the past 50 years. Here, we present the current state of knowledge on watershed and alluvial fan relationships, surficial patterns and topographic controls, alluvial fan stratigraphy and its relation to alluvial fan evolution, external and internal controls on alluvial fan development, and the role of humans on modifying the processes operating on alluvial fans. This is done through a lens of properly identifying and assessing the alluvial fan processes and hazards with the goal of promoting more informed decision making at state, county, and local levels.

Investing in source water protection efforts, rather than relying on water treatment alone, has long been a priority for the City of Boulder. Today’s presentation focuses on the outcomes to-date of a novel partnership between Boulder and the Town of Nederland to reduce wastewater impacts to Barker Reservoir, which provides one-third of Boulder’s water supply. Through the agreement, Boulder contributed initial capital funding for phosphorus removal at Nederland’s wastewater treatment facility and ongoing annual reimbursement for continued phosphorus treatment. The partnership has been successful on many levels, and now with 11 years of data to evaluate, we can assess effectiveness in improving reservoir water quality. Analyses of reservoir water quality data show a significant reduction in nutrient concentrations; however, chlorophyll-a concentrations remain consistent (albeit, fairly low). As reservoir temperatures increase and the reservoir’s ice season decreases, the communities are faced with a challenging question: How do you evaluate the success of source water protection measures in the face of climate change? 

The first half of this presentation will explore reservoir water quality and climate data before and after the agreement and how the partnership allows both communities to adapt in uncertain times.  The second part of the presentation will use this example as a foundation for an open forum discussion on how entities can evaluate source water protection projects amidst changing climatic conditions for forward-thinking watershed management.

Increased wildfires throughout the western United States have led to increased application of fire suppression products. Adaptation to this climate change reality includes the use of improved wildfire retardant formulations that are trade secrets. These improved retardants include aqueous solutions with chemical additives, including various concentrations of toxic metals. The fire retardant used on the Chatfield Watershed Quarry Fire site contains high concentrations of constituents of concern such as phosphorus, arsenic, and chromium. To understand the effects of the retardant, the Chatfield Watershed Authority sponsored a Colorado School of Mines Capstone project testing water and soil samples for contaminants. The results are enlightening and have inspired creative problem-solving with the recommendation of a demonstration project to address capturing this new concern in the watershed. Alan Leak with RESPEC would be the presenter.

Colorado's water resources face increasing pressure from climate change. The hottest and driest future projections in the Colorado Water Plan suggest a possible annual water supply shortage of 740,000 acre feet in Colorado’s cities and towns. Additionally, for every 1°F rise in average temperatures, potential streamflow diminishes by 3% - 5%. This will have far-reaching impacts to communities, agriculture, and our state’s watersheds and ecosystems.

To address this, the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) is implementing the Colorado Water Plan, which includes Action 4.10: develop a drought resilient toolkit. This toolkit will support the creation of regional "Water Security Roadmaps" (WSRs). The WSRs aim to unite local leaders to better understand regional water security challenges, establish collaborative and practical actions to increase water security and resilience, and guide communities toward funding opportunities that support their WSR priorities, especially related to aging water infrastructure, drought planning, and water conservation.

The CWCB is working with the Sonoran Institute and additional partners to convene workshops around the state, following a model similar to the highly regarded Growing Water Smart workshops. The Action 4.10 workshops will include a series of work sessions, panels that drive home local values and perspectives, and time for teams to exchange ideas, challenges, and collaborative solutions. By the end of each workshop, teams will create their own Water Security Roadmap.

Colorado communities recognize the importance of proactive water planning in an uncertain water future. Thus, the Colorado Water Plan’s Action 4.10 is an effort to collaboratively address the challenges that lay ahead. It is through effective planning, implementation, and relationship-building that we create more resilient and well-adapted communities. 

Attend this presentation for more information about the Water Plan’s Action 4.10 and how you can provide input and be involved in the upcoming workshops.As BWC has built out the beaver reintroduction and restoration program and aspires to be a local conduit for beaver coexistence support, more could be understood about perceptions of beavers among public agency managers across the Front Range. Especially critical is determining the degree to which beaver management planning and coexistence has occurred within public agencies in conflict areas and how the perceptions of beavers have influenced management decisions. 

BWC is working with select CU Master’s Students to conduct a comprehensive summary of Front Range municipalities, water management agencies, parks districts, and other resource manager’s current perceptions of beaver management, coexistence, and the nuanced challenges and successes of public land management for beavers. This summary will reflect dozens of interviews with watershed restoration experts, agency personnel and resource managers who have been influential in guiding beaver management practices and policies across Colorado, as well as a wide-ranging survey of practitioners who are responsible for managing and mitigating conflicts with beavers. This work ultimately highlights BWC’s vision to expand beaver populations into areas they are needed for watershed restoration, while maintaining beavers across diverse sectors and providing resources, expertise, and guidance for informed, collaborative, and forward-thinking beaver management policies and decisions across various landscapes of the Front Range.

“How old will you be in 2050?”

NB: A portion of this session will take place outside, as a fieldwork experience in the Eagle River.

Since the release of the Water Plan, we’ve been using this guiding question with positive, eye-opening responses. It also prodded water educators to contemplate how our work can better support the Plan’s implementation.

In response, we’ve built a quality-control system to provide external evaluation to water education programs teaching K-16 students – with much of the work done by young people. Our research-based system uses national education standards to identify Colorado’s “Water Education Exemplars.” This year, we will complete 15 reviews and recruit and train 9 youth.

Starting in 2026, this 5-year project will set pace to complete 100 reviews, engage and compensate 35 youth, and impact the majority of Colorado’s K-16 student population.

This session highlights two of the first designated “Colorado Water Education Exemplars”: CFOW and SPREE’s Excursions field trips.

CFOW asks high school students, “What can you do to improve your watershed?” Students research watershed concerns and propose realistic solutions to them. Almost 500 proposals are received annually for $10,000 in implementation funding, with the top 10 presenting in a competition for $11,000 in awards.

SPREE’s Excursion field trips are grade-specific, content-packed learning experiences taking place outdoors along the South Platte River. Preschool through 5th grade options, each with a sequence of 4-7 lessons, are highly immersive – learners get in a stream in many cases. About 5,000 students participate annually.

(Note: Second half of session will take place outdoors, in and near the river, dress appropriately)