Watershed Management Group

Watershed Management Group (WMG) develops community-based solutions to ensure the long-term prosperity of people and health of the environment. We provide people with the knowledge, skills, and resources for sustainable livelihoods.

In 2023 Watershed Management Group launched the Cool Our Cities initiative. The goal is to cool our cities by 5 degrees through reversing the urban heat island effect. Even with warming temperatures from climate change, research shows we can decrease air temperatures 5-7 degrees by creating "cool infrastructure," that creates cooler temperatures in small areas - known as
microclimates. Cooling microclimates can be created by maximizing shade trees, shrubs, and native groundcovers; and minimizing hot surfaces like patios, driveways, and bare gravel yards.

WMG is teaching people all year long to create cooling infrastructure by:
1. Engaging 3,000+ people every year in free classes at our Living Lab, our rainwater-fed educational campus
2. Teaching hundreds of families through our Rain Garden workshops, sending them home with complimentary rain garden kits, including a native shade tree and wood-chip mulch; to cool their own homes
3. Building a cadre of professionals in green jobs through our week-long Water Harvesting Certification, training 70+ people this year.

The River Run Network is a Watershed Management group of over 3,500 volunteers working to achieve our 50-year vision of restoring our heritage of flowing desert creeks and rivers focused on the binational Santa Cruz and San Pedro rivers. This is being achieved through:
1. Creek walks, clean-ups, restoration workshops, community science efforts, and conservation at home
2. Regular flow monitoring of Tucson's creeks and rivers as well as an annual binational beaver survey
3. Removing the invasive Arundo donax from the Tanque Verde Creek, with the goal of complete removal in the next five years.

WMG's Living Lab is a community demonstration site for sustainable desert living in mid-town Tucson. It offers exhibits, classes, and tours in both English and Spanish, serves all ages from across the border region, and attracts national and global visitors-reaching about 3,000 people annually. The center features water harvesting, native habitat, food forests, composting toilets, passive solar, monitoring systems, and is a campus entirely supported by rainwater. All the programs at the Living Lab are offered for free thanks to donations, including Hydrate classes, tours, and Family Saturdays.