Verde River Watershed Conservation Plan

The Verde River watershed covers 4.2 million acres in central Arizona and includes about 500 miles of perennial streams. The Nature Conservancy has conducted a year-long planning exercise to identify the most effective actions for maintaining or restoring this watershed's native aquatic and riparian biodiversity. During a structured planning process, 64 individuals from 21 organizations contributed data, analyses, and ideas about the priority conservation needs and opportunities. We identified nonnative fish, crayfish, and frog species as the most critical sources of stress basin-wide, followed by groundwater pumping and climate change. Other threats were also ranked highly for particular natural communities in some parts of the watershed, including surface water diversions and large impoundments. Key strategies identified include the need for integrated management of groundwater and surface water, developing more efficient surface water management that meets both human needs and those of the natural systems, and watershed-scale planning to integrate native fish conservation with the demand for recreational fisheries. These results will guide the Conservancy's work for many years to come, and may be useful for other organizations that share similar goals. View Document.