Watershed Planning Prioritization Tool
Click on the map below to explore the watershed planning priorization tool.
This tool is aimed at helping state agencies, nonprofits, and local government identify high priority locations for initiating watershed planning. The tool can also be used by communities and watershed groups to better understand the resources values and concerns in their watershed(s) of interest.
River Network, in partnership with the Colorado Water Conservation Board and with input from several statewide non-governmental organizations, performed a desktop analysis to develop a framework to identify and prioritize locations for watershed planning throughout Colorado. Existing high-level statewide tools and resource data layers were utilized to crosswalk known:
- areas of high species or ecosystem conservation value;
- ecological and economic values at risk due to flood, drought, and wildfire; and
- existence of an active watershed group that could take on planning efforts.
A priority watershed is defined as a hydrologically defined area that has locally important conservation and/or community values, lacks a current plan to protect or improve its values, and has a critical mass of stakeholders and capacity that increases the likelihood of successfully enacting planning strategies and projects.
Instructions for use:
Click on the “i” button on the left side of the mapping tool for more information on this project.
Click the “Input Layers” button to view the individual data layers that were used as inputs to the final prioritization tool. These layers can be turned on and off to view particular resource values or risks within a watershed.
Click the “Filter” button to explore various filters. Be sure to search for your watershed using the “Identify Watersheds” filter.
How was this analysis conducted?
Existing, high-level, statewide data layers (see Table 1 below) were analyzed at the HUC12 (Hydrologic Unit Code) sub-watershed scale
Sub-watersheds were classified based on if they intersected with areas of 1) high overall resource or habitat integrity or 2) higher risk to overall resources and/or habitat integrity.
Sub-watersheds of high integrity, resource presence or susceptibility were scored with a 1, areas with low integrity, resource presence or low susceptibility were scored with a 0.
Analysis occurred in a two-step process. First, sub-watersheds were classified based on if they intersected with areas of 1) high overall resource or habitat integrity or 2) higher risk to overall resources and/or habitat integrity. Sub-watersheds of high integrity, resource presence or susceptibility were scored with a 1, areas with low integrity, resource presence or low susceptibility were scored with a 0.
Second, all the scores (weighted evenly across a major river basin) for each data layer were compiled to create a prioritization index from lowest to highest priority. The priority index is a scale between 0-1 of normalized compilation scores, with 0 being the lowest priority (shown in green) and 1 being the highest priority (shown in red).
What are the “Input Layers”?
The input layers are the data layers used in this analysis to identify areas with habitat or resource integrity. See below for a description of all the input layers used in this analysis.
Input Layers
- Statewide Potential Conservation Areas (2022): Colorado Natural Heritage Program’s best estimate of the primary area required to support the long-term survival of targeted species or natural communities.
- Floodplain Integrity (Morrison et al., 2023): Degradation of floodplain integrity within the contiguous United States.
- Tier 1 Aquatic Resources (Colorado Parks and Wildlife):Depicts the Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) 12 boundaries where populations of Tier 1 fish species are known to occur in Colorado based on occurrences between Jan. 2008 and Dec. 2017.
- Water Quality (Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, 2023): CDPHE assessment of water quality across Colorado stream segments.
- Post-Wildfire Susceptibility Analysis (Colorado Water Conservation Board, 2022): This effort relied on existing statewide datasets for project wildfire burn severity, critical water supplies, populations at risk, and infrastructure. The identification of post-fire hazards used a combination of existing hazard mapping, geologic and topographic data, and other related information to determine potential impacts on values at risk.
- Watershed Condition (Environmental Protection Agency, 2023): This tool supports the assessment of relative watershed condition by calculating ecological, stressor, and social index values, as well as a combined watershed index (WSI) that considers all three components.
- Colorado River (Ecological) Integrity Assessment (Conservation Science Partners, 2022): Assessing the ecological integrity of the Colorado River Basin: An interactive tool for setting conservation priorities.
- Colorado Enviroscreen Score (CDPHE, 2022): Colorado EnviroScreen is an environmental justice mapping tool that uses population and environmental factors to calculate an “EnviroScreen score.” A higher EnviroScreen score means the area is more likely to be affected by environmental health injustice.
- River Recreation Segments (American Whitewater, 2024): This draft mapping tool identifies reaches used for river recreation across Colorado. This mapping tool also shows flow preference work around Colorado for river recreation.
- Active Colorado Watershed Planning Groups (Colorado Watershed Assemby, 2017; Center for Collaborative Conesrvation, 2023): This directory lists watershed groups according to Interbasin Compact Committee (IBCC) basin.
- Ongoing and Completed Stream Management Plans (River Network and Colorado Water Conservation Board, 2024): In general, SMPs that received funding from CWCB’s Colorado Watershed Restoration Program (CWRP) are included in the map. Other plans that were not funded by CWRP may be included as well, but summaries of these efforts are not provided.
- Colorado Watershed-Based Plans (CDPHE, 2023): Watershed-based planning helps address the diffuse nature of NPS pollution in a holistic approach by fully assessing potential causes and sources of pollution, then prioritizing restoration and protection strategies to implement Best Management Practices to improve water quality.
Note on Data Gaps:
Detailed information on active watershed groups and/or community-based organizations is lacking. Future watershed planning readiness assessments should consider and collect data on the following attributes of such groups and organzations:
- Community trust in the organization
- Organizational purpose
- Capacity to plan
- Geographic range
- Interest in planning
- Whether planning is underway
- Involvement or leadership in current watershed work
- Capacity to undertake/implement watershed-scale projects
Data across the state of Colorado are inconsistent because of a lack of standardized data collection, analysis, management, output, and visualization.