Did you miss our November webinar, How to Activate Your Constituency to Identify Community Led Water Supply Solutions? We recorded it and it is available to watch here today! Jennifer Schoonen with the Blackfoot Challenge described how she has worked with local stakeholders to identify community-led water supply solutions in Western Montana.
Stakeholders in Western Montana’s Blackfoot Watershed have developed voluntary conservation solutions in a time of increasing natural resource challenges – particularly drought. The Blackfoot Drought Response Program has brought together anglers and ranchers, fisheries biologists and hydrologists to collaborate on reducing the social, economic and ecological impacts of water shortages during drought. But it is a program in transition, with changes in water rights and long-term climate patterns among the many influences now leading to a new era of drought resiliency planning.
- How the Blackfoot’s community-based drought response program began and has been adapted over the course of the last 20 years.
- How additional watershed stewardship programs – including irrigation efficiency and stream restoration – have played a critical role in supporting drought response.
- How to adapt programs like this to a new normal of climate and water supply and the changing economic needs of rural communities and build additional resiliency.
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Photo Credit: Blackfoot River, Bureau of Land Management
