Natural Heritage Institute:
Building Capacity in the Sierra Nevada
EcoRegion
The North Yuba River on a misty
morning.
View of the South Yuba River.
Meadow in the Sierra Nevada.
Targeted Watersheds
Capacity Building Grant
The Natural Heritage Institute (NHI), a nonprofit orga-
nization founded in 1989, focuses domestically and
internationally on efforts to restore and protect the
natural functions that support water-dependent ecosystems
and the services they provide to sustain and enrich human
life. Project partners include the Nevada Irrigation District,
American Rivers, Sierra Nevada Alliance and the University of
California at Davis.
Watershed Capacity Building Efforts
A Water Trust for the Sierra Nevada Region
The rivers of the Sierra Nevada provide 60 percent of California's
water supply and 25 percent of Nevada's. However, increasing
population and development in the area are increasing the need
to withdraw water from the rivers, limiting the in-stream flow
available to aquatic ecosystems. There are over 10,000 indi-
vidual holders of water rights in the Sierra Nevada region, many
for small quantities. If a portion of the water rights could be re-
claimed for strategic flow augmentation, then river stress could
be managed, and the ecosystem services protected or restored.
Water rights acquisition is well suited for headwater rivers and
streams because adding even a small amount of additional flow
in the right stream reaches at the right time can be critical to
maintaining and improving river function. Acquiring a water right
from the private sector and converting it to "trust water" has
been successfully used in the Pacific Northwest to allocate water
specifically for beneficial uses in perpetuity. NHI will look to repli-
cate this successful approach in the Sierra Nevada region.
A Regional Water Trust Roundtable comprised of a broad group
of stakeholders will be convened to guide the project and pro-
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vide a forum for discussion. Wa-
tershed groups, water and power
districts, land trusts, farming and
economic interests, planning depart-
ments, and state and federal agen-
cies will be invited to participate.
NHI and project partners will re-
search existing water acquisition
programs in other states to develop
a Sierra model for trust water. The
project partners will work with wa-
tershed organizations to identify the
legal, institutional, and social bar-
riers, as well as the incentives and
benefits to water rights acquisition in the
Sierra Nevada region of California and Ne-
vada. To build organizational capacity, NHI will
provide outreach strategies and share techni-
cal information and resources. NHI will also
sponsor workshops on how to apply trust wa-
ter approaches and assess flow augmentation
needs. Participants will be trained in the use of
The Nature Conservancy's Regime Prescription
Tool, which allows users to build alternative
hydrographs in real-time to analyze different
flow scenarios.
Additionally, a mini-grant program will pro-
vide funding and technical assistance to three
to five watershed organizations in the Sierra
Nevada Ecoregion to assess the flow augmen-
tation needs for habitat and water quality in
their watersheds. Analysis of the river condi-
tions, water quality factors, biodiversity, flow
timing, etc. will help in the selection of priority
reaches and identification of potential acquisi-
tion areas.
Location of the Natural Heritage
Institute's work with trust waters and
stream flow augmentation
For more information:
www.n-h-i.org
Elizabeth Soderstrom
Director, Sierra and African Rivers
Program
Natural Heritage Institute
esoderstrom@n-h-i.org
iPA's Targeted Watersheds Grar
program is a competetive grant
program designed to encourag
collaborative, community-driver
approaches to meet clean water go
For more information about
selected watersheds, please vi:
http://www.epa.gov/twg
840-F-08-001T
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