What is a watershed, you ask?

A watershed is a land area that channels rainfall and snow melt to creeks, streams, and rivers, and eventually to outflow points. A watershed area includes forests, streams, plains, and the communities living within.

The Boulder Creek Watershed is an area of roughly 286,000 acres originating from the headwaters at the Continental Divide to the eastern plains. The upper watershed is a mountainous landscape drained by 3 major tributaries (North Boulder Creek, Middle Boulder Creek, and South Boulder Creek). The lower watershed opens into the plains of the Front Range with both urban and agricultural uses.

Interactive boulder creek watershed map

Take a look at this Boulder Creek Watershed Map. Play around with some of the layers to learn about things like mining history, confluence, and structures in the Boulder Creek Watershed.

About Boulder Watershed Collective

The Boulder Watershed Collective is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, stakeholder-driven organization established to address forested watershed health, resiliency, and stewardship. We have three program areas: Climate Adaptation and Resilience, Watershed Restoration, and Community Engagement.

The Boulder Watershed Collective, in its original structure as the Fourmile Watershed Coalition, has proudly provided quite a bit of support and resiliency work for the watershed communities post-flood. We completed 11 stream restoration and mine reclamation projects, restoring more than 13,000 linear feet of stream, planting more than 24,000 plants and tree seedlings, and removing more than 1,800 cubic yards of mine tailings from legacy gold and silver mining near vulnerable stream-adjacent areas.

In 2019 we evolved to the Boulder Watershed Collective and expanded our geographical service area into the larger Boulder Creek Watershed to increase our impact. We are currently working with communities on over 600 acres of wildfire mitigation and forest restoration, including defensible space and home hardening. We are working to assess and restore mountain meadow systems to improve water storage, biodiversity, and wildfire buffers. We monitor stream water quality and continue to support healthy river systems for both human and aquatic life.

Our greatest achievement is the network of partners we have developed, who are all doing incredible work! We are proud to work with neighborhoods, communities, and agency partners to help knit together a cohesive ‘Collective’, to catalyze action and to broaden opportunities for collective impact through strong, trusted partnerships.

Our values:

• Foster trusted relationships

• Empower environmental stewardship

• Cultivate collaboration

• Promote intersectional environmentalism

• Embody integrity, inspire action