Environmental Flows Cohort Training

I am pleased to be one of twelve Coloradans selected to participate in the Environmental Flows Cohort. We will spend the next 18 months learning to be effective watershed planning practitioners. Each of us will have a capstone project and mine will be water flows in the West Plum Creek watershed in Douglas County, CO. Here are more details from the program overview.

Environmental Flows Cohort 

Coloradans have a shared problem: prolonged drought and increasing population are putting added pressure on our rivers and the users -agricultural producers, outdoor recreationists, municipalities, and others- who rely on them. This problem is also an opportunity, a chance to find locally driven solutions to low flows based on mutual gains and shared scientific understanding.

River Network and our partners at Western Resource Advocates and Colorado Water Trust are excited to offer an Environmental Flows Cohort Program to train water leaders across the state on the science behind river health, the laws influencing river flows, and the fundamental people skills required to collaboratively address this shared challenge.   

The Flows Cohort Program is designed to meet the professional needs of watershed planning practitioners and others who are leading or involved in community-driven flows projects or programs as part of a watershed planning process, offered in a cohort format to promote skill-building and peer networking among practitioners facing similar challenges.

I am excited to begin this program as I have lived in this watershed for 25 years and watched as flows have steadily diminished, culminating in extensive areas of dry up earlier than ever before this year. This trend endangers native fish and amphibian populations as well as causes native vegetation to struggle with an ever-lower water table. I’ll be checking flows across the watershed, which includes West Plum Creek and its five tributary streams. This will be a wonderful opportunity for me to expand my knowledge base and build on my previous career in Architecture and Sustainability.

If you want to learn more, River Network will be offering a training only option launching in fall 2026.

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