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Master Watershed Steward Program
The Master Watershed Steward (MWS) program has provided education and training related to local watershed issues to communities throughout Arizona since 2003, with the goal of engaging citizens to help restore and protect their land and water resources. Recently, MWS was awarded funding by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) to support the educational needs of community members in specific, targeted watersheds that have nonpoint source pollution water quality impairments. Our goal is to increase the knowledge level of interested community members and train them to become stewards and informed voices of action in their communities.
Currently, ADEQ has identified six priority watersheds throughout the state to receive funding to develop Watershed Implementation Plans that will ultimately identify and prioritize water quality improvement projects critical to restoring water quality in these areas. The WRRC plays a unique role in supporting this effort, as MWS and NEMO are both key resource providers in this process. MWS partners with grassroots organizations (aka “watershed groups”) in these watersheds to identify educational needs and develop opportunities that are of interest to group members. Through this process MWS utilizes faculty expertise at the University of Arizona to develop classes and training sessions that help people understand the physical processes impacting their watershed and what actions can be taken to create healthy watersheds.
MWS courses cover a variety of topics including geology, hydrology, water quality, riparian ecology, forest health, climate, and GIS/GPS mapping, and include several field trips to see first-hand how land use changes and behaviors affect the watershed. These topics provide participants, known as stewards, with an understanding of how they can conserve water on the land to reduce pollution, including sediment, bacteria and nutrients, from entering a stream. In addition, stewards are also trained to effectively communicate watershed issues and explain the importance of changing pollutioncausing behaviors to visitors and other community members, reaching out to over 6,000 Arizonans each year. Stewards use this knowledge as volunteers with local watershed groups and also as concerned individuals, caring for their own property. Together, these on-theground actions help conserve water, reduce pollution, and create healthy watersheds. MWS is investing in Arizona’s environment and communities by empowering individuals to care for their watersheds.
Conserve to Enhance
Demands for water are growing in almost all sectors. Meeting environmental water needs and consumer demands requires innovative strategies. But in the absence of state or local policy changes, securing additional water for the environment requires raising funds to purchase water.
Conserve Water, Enhance the Environment
One study has shown that people are more likely to participate in water conservation programs that directly address environmental concerns, but purchasing water for environmental flows can be costly. Making more efficient use of various types of water can extend available supplies. For example, rain water harvesting can replace potable (i.e., drinking) water as the water source for outdoor landscaping.
With this in mind, The University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center (WRRC), The Sonoran Institute, and Watershed Management Group developed the Tucson Conserve to Enhance program to help the community connect water conservation to environmental benefits.
This innovative program offers municipal water customers the option of voluntarily donating the money they save through water conservation to a fund that obtains water supplies for local enhancement projects. Participants can conserve water at their homes or businesses and then track and donate the money saved from their water bill to benefit local riparian ecosystems.
Piloting the Concept
The Tucson Conserve to Enhance pilot program will begin January 2011. Applications for pilot participants are being accepted between October 22 and January 7. Forty-five participants will receive a subsidy to install water harvesting features at their homes, if they agree to donate money saved to the Conserve to Enhance fund.
To ensure the success of Conserve to Enhance in any community, WRRC researchers are evaluating this and other pilot programs. As variations on the original concept emerge, we are creating a template of options that local partners can draw from for programs in other areas. The WRRC is also tracking participation in pilot programs to gauge to what extent connecting water users with environmental enhancement will succeed in increasing conservation activities.
This program concept applies a novel approach to an emerging problem, engaging individual water users in voluntary action toward a more sustainable water future where the environment is “at the table” as a water user. To learn more, visit the WRRC’s Conserve to Enhance website: http://www.cals.arizona.edu/azwater/conserve2enhance.html To learn about the Tucson pilot program, visit: http://www.watershedmg.org/c2e.
NEMO Wet/Dry Mapping
In response to community interest in developing a volunteer river monitoring program, Arizona NEMO (Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials) has created a mapping protocol and GIS data management and processing methodology to record the change in perennial reaches in Arizona rivers. Built on a Nature Conservancy and Bureau of Land Management volunteer monitoring program first started in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, this outreach and education program measures the length of perennial flow in the San Pedro River. NEMO formalized the volunteer training program and is expanding the activity with community groups across Arizona.
The main objective of the monitoring program is to create a map that shows where water is present, and where it is not, in the driest time of the year immediately prior to the monsoon rains of summer. By mapping during the ‘dry’ season, information about river baseflow and the interrelationship between surface and groundwater can be documented and better understood.
The goal of the annual monitoring is to create a long-term record of changes in river flow: while the record of any single year is interesting, it is the record of multiple years that may show what is really happening to the flow in the river. In addition, the goal of Wet/Dry is to build community participation, provide outreach education on the importance of longterm monitoring of our natural environment, and foster understanding of the responsibility for the health of Arizona watersheds. Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is used to record where the water starts and stops, and Geographic Information System (GIS) technology is used to produce the final maps. Re-mapping the river each year at the same time can provide valuable data on long-term trends and changes to base-flows.
After contributing to the expansion of the Wet/Dry mapping of the San Pedro River from 50 miles to a total of 134 miles during the June 2007 mapping effort, Arizona NEMO then initiated a mapping program on the Agua Fria River in June 2008. For the first year, 34 volunteers on foot and horseback mapped roughly 24 miles of the 82- mile long Agua Fria River that flows through the rugged Agua Fria National Monument.
Arizona Project WET Program
Today’s students represent the first generations who have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. Some scholars think that these students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors. Arizona Project WET (APW) meets the needs of these students by providing innovative water education programs that infuse twenty-first century learning techniques, communication, and collaborative learning skills in classroom instruction.
Workshops model the inquiry process, presenting participants with a focus question that drives investigation and learning. This process develops problem solving and critical thinking skills in participants as they grapple with locally and regionally relevant content. The workshops employ digital responders, or “clickers” to increase student engagement and achievement.
The fact that American teenagers currently rank 25th in math and 21st in science relative to their international peers has focused national attention on the need to develop Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) subject area curricula. APW’s new School Water Audit Program (SWAP) answers this need. It is a project-based action curriculum in which students actually audit a school’s water use and make data-based recommendations for conservation.
Students collect their own data by measuring directly the amount of water used in a school. They implement technology-based conservation alternatives and make presentations and demonstrations in the community that provide incentive for community involvement in water
conservation. Seventh-grade students working with APW on the SWAP won the Governor’s Excellence in Economic Development Award for Future Leaders and their teacher was selected as Water Educator of the Year in Yavapai County. The SWAP won the most innovative program award at the Association of Natural Resource Extension Professionals 2010 Conference.
APW’s direct student outreach programs expand and strengthen knowledge on the important topic of water. Arizona Water Festivals provide a good example. Water festivals make learning fun, and they are based on Arizona’s educational standards. Over the past few years, Arizona Water Festivals have engaged and instructed 41,354 fourth-grade students and 1,647 teachers in 20 Arizona communities. The model includes 1) pre- and post- festival lessons conducted in-classroom by teachers, 2) teacher professional development, 3) volunteer training, and 4) program evaluation.
According to a 2009 evaluation of program effectiveness, the Water Festivals measurably increased student knowledge about water as well as their enthusiasm for water conservation and learning about water. Objective evaluation also found that students in the classes of teachers who participate in an APW professional development workshop show greater gains than those who do not.