Deploying nature-based wildfire resilience and watershed health interventions involves a variety of lands, e.g., federal, state, private, and locally owned lands, and a variety of stakeholders, e.g., water managers, forest managers, watershed and community groups, conservation organizations, and academic institutions. Because of this multifaceted ecosystem needed to implement nature-based interventions, partnerships between water providers, forest managers, community groups, watershed organizations, and other stakeholders are essential to success.

The sections below provide insight into who the key partners are for building nature-based resilience and ways to engage those partners. These sections also highlight a case study about the Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed, a successful partnership advancing nature-based solutions, and additional partnership resources.

Engaging Key Partners for Nature-Based Resilience

There are a number of key partners water providers should consider working with as they find ways to finance and implement nature-based wildfire and watershed health interventions. Strategies for engaging these partners range from individual meetings to touring the watershed with decision makers. Click on the sections below to learn more.

Key Partners

Key partners in developing and implementing nature-based wildfire and watershed health interventions include a wide range of stakeholders, such as: 

  • U.S. Forest Service 
  • Colorado State Agencies
    • Colorado Forest Service
    • Department of Parks and Wildlife
    • Department of Natural Resources 
    • Colorado Water Conservation Board
  • Private Property Owners
  • Neighboring Water Providers
  • Watershed Groups
  • Workforce Development NGOs
  • Academics

Partnering with federal and state forest managers can help Colorado water providers access forested land to implement nature-based solutions, and can be an important way to co-fund these investments. Connecting with private property owners can similarly give water providers access to private lands where nature-based resilience interventions need to be implemented; private property owners are also key partners because having their support for selected intervention types, e.g., thinning or prescribed fire, can help navigate implementation challenges. 

Neighboring water providers are also key partners. Many watersheds provide water to more than one municipality or district; working together on resilience interventions leverages shared resources to meet shared goals. 

Watershed groups provide avenues for convening and organizing the various stakeholders. These groups are also often project implementers. 

Other key project implementers are workforce development organizations, e.g., the Rocky Mountain Conservation Corp, that provide essential on-the-ground staff to install nature-based interventions. 

Academic institutions can provide needed research, analysis, and education to help water providers make the case for nature-based investments. For example, Colorado State University is a leader on wildfire and watershed health research. 

The next section below features ways to engage these key stakeholders and begin to build partnerships that can help pave the way for success.

Ways to Engage Key Partners

Building relationships with key stakeholders that can help water providers deploy nature-based interventions will likely involve a variety of engagement strategies and approaches, such as: 

  • Watershed tours
  • Community meetings 
  • Open houses
  • Individual landowner or business meetings
  • Targeted mailers to property owners in priority areas
  • Attending Homeowners Association meetings
  • Free property assessments by a local forester 

Water providers, and their partners, already investing in nature-based resilience strategies for their watersheds share that tailoring engagement strategies and messaging for specific audiences is key. 

Building trust amongst water providers, community groups, and community members is also an important engagement strategy. Click here to learn more about best practices for trust building.

Case Study - Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed

The Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed is a partnership between landowners, government agencies, water utilities, and non-profits who collaborate to address wildfire and other challenges in the Poudre River watershed. Started as an unofficial affiliation in 2012 after the High Park fire, the coalition became a watershed-wide, formal non-profit organization in 2016. Now, CPRW works across the entire Poudre Watershed—from headwaters to the confluence with the South Platte River—on issues relating to watershed and forest resilience, wildfire mitigation, and post-fire restoration.

CPRW’s 30 members include the Colorado State Forest Service, the City of Greeley, The Nature Conservancy, the Ember Alliance, among others. The partnership identifies the watershed’s biggest problems, uses science and expert input to prioritize where projects will have the most impact and then collaboratively implements actions on the ground that will protect our rivers, communities, and water supply. 

Among these projects, CPRW implements nature-based interventions such as aerial mulching, point-based mitigation, and reforestation. These interventions were selected because they can, e.g., reduce sedimentation, protect water quality, and protect down stream infrastructure. The coalition also conducts essential watershed and fire resilience planning. These plans include the Upper Poudre Watershed Resilience Plan (2024), the Lower Poudre River Watershed Resilience Plan (2017), and a 5-year strategic plan with a 50-year vision for the watershed.

The coalition’s work is funded in a number of ways. CPRW receives federal and state grants, as well as sponsorship from local businesses. Local water providers, such as Greeley, contribute matching funds for project implementation. By serving as a centralized organization that can accept and manage these various funding sources, CPRW plays an important role in funding nature-based resilience interventions. The partnership provides a pathway for leveraging a portfolio of federal, state, and local dollars in a way that may not otherwise be possible.

Click here to explore Financing Pathways available to Colorado water providers. As detailed in that section, water providers have the option to expand their investments in collaborative projects like those implemented by Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed by financing those investments with municipal bonds or State Revolving Fund loans.

Partnership Resources & Profiles

Coming soon!

Ready to assess the feasibility of bond financing nature-based resilience projects? Use the Water Provider Decision-Tool to evaluate the threshold factors influencing whether your water provider can debt finance investments in nature-based wildfire resilience.