Indicators of Cienega Watershed Health
How healthy is our watershed?
To answer this question, the Cienega Watershed Partnership (CWP) is working with partners to identify indicators that can provide an annual snapshot of watershed health for natural and socio-cultural resources. The State of the Cienega Watershed process allows the CWP to capitalize on our partners’ existing data and provides a mechanism for regularly evaluating watershed health and adapting CWP program priorities and actions. It will also offer a range of opportunities to engage with the public on watershed issues.
Photo © Michael McNulty / photos.mcnulty.net.
Over the past several years, CWP has convened a series of workshops, conducted an electronic survey, and held several smaller working group sessions. This extensive input from partners has helped identify the basic criteria for selecting priority indicators, and trim a very long list of possible indicators to a core set of indicators that can help us gain a strong real-time assessment of watershed health.
CWP partners identified an initial set of 47 indicators that were divided into four categories:
- Upland
- Water and riparian
- Social-cultural
- Landscape
In the February 2016 workshop, participants prioritized and consolidated these into a proposed set of core indicators, identifying the source of the data, and how the information will be collected and presented.
Our goal this year is to field-test this approach using these selected indicators and methods, and present our initial attempt at defining the state of the watershed during our winter 2016 CWP meeting.
The annual State of the Watershed presentations are available below.
State of the Watershed Presentations and Reports
2023 State of the Watershed Presentation
View or download the PowerPoint presentation outlining the objective, methodology, results, conclusion, and next steps as part of the 2023 State of the Watershed.
2022 State of the Watershed Presentation
View or download the PowerPoint presentation outlining the objective, methodology, results, conclusion, and next steps as part of the 2022 State of the Watershed.
2021 State of the Watershed Presentation
View or download the PowerPoint presentation outlining the objective, methodology, results, conclusion, and next steps as part of the 2021 State of the Watershed.
2020 State of the Watershed Indicators
View or download the PowerPoint presentation outlining the objective, methodology, results, conclusion, and next steps as part of the 2020 State of the Watershed.
View or download the PowerPoint presentation outlining the objective, methodology, results, conclusion, and next steps as part of the 2018 State of the Watershed.
View or download the PowerPoint presentation outlining the objective, methodology, results, conclusion, and next steps as part of the 2017 State of the Watershed.
2016 State of the Watershed Survey of Criteria and Indicators
View or download the PowerPoint presentation outlining criteria and indicators in gauging the 2016 State of the Watershed.
2015 State of the Watershed Report
View or download the most recent State of the Watershed report, courtesy Las Cienegas Adaptive Management.
Las Cienegas Adaptive Management State of the Watershed Reports
Access all available annual State of the Watershed reports, reference materials, information on biological planning, and more from the Las Cienegas Adaptive Management site.
For additional information, or to participate in the State of the Watershed project, please contact us.