The U.S. West is a dramatic landscape – from the temperate forests of the Pacific Northwest to the harsh deserts of the Southwest. Both inland and on its coast, the West is home to some of the world’s most spectacular landscapes, wildlife, and plants, as well as numerous National Parks, Forests, and other federally managed lands and waters. In fact, the U.S. government owns nearly 50% of all land in the West. Some of that land is protected or conserved, though much of it is leased for grazing or minerals and oil extraction. 

The region has long faced conflict over the use of its lands, waters, and resources. The central debate has been how much to use or extract versus how much to leave for nature. This is true for what is arguably the region’s most precious resource – water. 

River advocacy nonprofit American Rivers lists Northern California's Eel River as one of the 10 most endangered rivers in the United States. Photo: Shutterstock

Freshwater ecosystems are some of the most valuable ecosystems on Earth. They provide essential services, known as ecosystem services, including food, water, and even energy that humanity depends on. They protect our communities (through flood and erosion control), provide and enhance our water (through water filtration, storage, and groundwater recharge), contribute to healthy soils, capture and store carbon, and support biodiversity including healthy fisheries. In the West, they also support species that are important both for subsistence fishing and for Indigenous cultural identities (e.g., Indigenous groups of the Pacific Northwest define themselves as Salmon People).

The control of the West’s rivers through the last century of channelizing, damming, and fragmentation has transformed the economic and physical landscape of the region. The “reclamation” of the West through the movement of water for, primarily, irrigation (and to control what early colonizers found to be unpredictable and dangerous rivers), has completely altered the natural flow of our watersheds. Changes to the connectivity of our freshwater ecosystems have impaired habitat for countless species that depend on them, especially fish, and altered the natural movement of rivers over time. Water quality has also suffered because of the fragmentation of our waterways. 

Source: The Disappearing West Project, Center for American Progress 

Historically, when dividing up and allocating the region’s freshwater, at least one key stakeholder group wasn’t included—the rivers themselves. The colonizers who arrived in the West did not consider either the environment or Indigenous communities to be “water users”. Even without including those users, today there are more rights than there is water. For the environment, the starkest reminder of this is that the Colorado River, the region’s most notoriously overallocated river, hasn’t reliably reached the ocean for decades. 

The impacts of climate change will further stress critically important ecosystems across the West. Excessive use of surface waters, higher temperatures, increased evaporation, heavy rains and flooding, and more wildfires will have negative impacts on aquatic habitat. These changes can dry up bodies of water, disrupt fish movement, lead to vegetation changes, impact soil, increase pollution, and impair water quality. 

Blue green algae. Image: Alexlky/Getty Images/iStockphoto

These ecosystems can also become solutions—often called Nature-based Solutions—to the climate and water crises. Monitoring the health of, protecting, and restoring our aquatic ecosystems can be powerful strategies for improving watershed function, stabilizing water availability, and building the resilience of those living downstream. In particular, the following key ecosystems play an important role in supporting healthy and resilient watersheds: 

• Conservation and sustainable management of headland forests protect downstream waters and drinking water supplies. Healthy forests regulate flows and filter and purify our water. Protection and management are critical to bolstering forests' capacity to deliver these important services and withstand looming climate threats including disease, pests, and wildfires.
• Meadows and wetlands perform critical functions including water filtration and storage. They can offer flood protection, provide breaks for wildfires, enhance groundwater recharge, and even lower water temperatures.
• Restoring rivers to their peak function, where feasible, is crucial to establishing functionality where it has been lost and protecting our drinking water. Where practical, removing “deadbeat” dams and culverts can reduce fragmentation and restore connectivity.
• In cities, green infrastructure – such as rain gardens, trees, infiltration basins, and permeable pavements – can help filter surface waters, lower ambient temperatures, and slow down and absorb precipitation, reducing the chance of overflows.

(From KQED) Birds fly over the Central Valley's Cosumnes River Preserve, one of the few protected wetland habitat areas in California. Photo credit: John Ciccarelli/BLM

How Philanthropy Can Help

There are many opportunities for philanthropy to improve the health and resilience of the region’s watersheds. Across the West there are organizations working on the ground to:

• Monitor and restore critical ecosystems. Where ecosystems have been impaired, human intervention and management may be able to restore ecological function more rapidly. Philanthropy can support organizations that are restoring critical habitats, conducting research to monitor the health of and prioritize ecosystems for protection and restoration, and testing new restoration methods. 
• Advocate for protections for critical landscapes. Philanthropy can support organizations and coalitions campaigning to extend new protections to critical ecosystems as well as those working to defend those protections against new threats.
• Facilitate stakeholder engagement, regional planning, and management. Sound natural resource management is important. Philanthropy can provide capacity building and training for resource managers, including training in traditional management approaches such as beneficial fire for forest management. Watersheds do not necessarily follow state boundaries – achieving landscape-scale conservation or restoration will require planning and cooperation across stakeholders and boundaries. Philanthropy can also support organizations and coalitions facilitating robust and participatory stakeholder processes to plan and build momentum for landscape-scale projects.