Pima County Regional Flood Control District Monthly Brown Bag Series
Speaker: Adriana Zuniga-Teran, Staff Scientist at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy / Senior Lecturer at the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning, UA
Date/Time: Wednesday, August 8, 12–1 PM
Place: 201 North Stone Ave, 9th Floor
The State of the Cienega Watershed
The Cienega watershed has a great value to the local community because it contains one of the last perennial creeks in southern Arizona and provides critical habitat for the survival of many species, including some threatened and endangered. This watershed is also very important for ranchers and visitors to beautiful recreation areas, and because it provides clean groundwater and flood control benefits to the City of Tucson. Lately, there have been concerns for the health of this watershed because of the opening of the Rosemont Mine that will be located in this watershed. The purpose of this project is to measure the state of the health of the watershed before, during, and after the mine starts operations. This project is an ongoing participatory effort that aims to assess the state of the watershed, leveraging from data collection activities and studies that already occur in the region. The presentation provides a baseline of the state of the Cienega Watershed that is composed of 20 climate, water, ecological, and socio-cultural indicators. Through a continuous stakeholder engagement process, the data have been revised and edited and will be continuously updated to inform management actions.