Watershed-scale Climate Collaboration (WSCC)
Exploring collaboratives across Massachusetts
Introduction
Climate change is a wicked complicated problem that requires holistic thinking across systems and sectors to successfully protect people and nature. It's also incredibly urgent and we don't have time to reinvent the wheel with every new initiative.
That's why it's essential to collaborate to effectively adapt to climate change. We need to work together to have any hope of responding and transforming quickly enough to climate impacts.
Watershed-Scale Climate Collaboratives (WSCCs) are groups of individuals, organizations and/or municipalities that come together across a watershed to respond to and prepare for climate change impacts.
Watersheds provide ecologically and environmentally meaningful boundaries. We know that water doesn't flow according to political or municipal boundaries! Actions taken upstream affect those downstream, and vice versa, because they're all part of the same system.
We're lucky to have several watershed-scale climate collaboratives pioneering this work in our state, making Massachusetts a national leader.
What’s in this StoryMap?
- collaboratives that already exist, their mission, participants, example projects and how to get involved;
- connections to other collaborative leaders, to share best practices and examples to improve your own collaborative;
- where gaps exist in the state, to potentially fuel the start of a new collaborative.
Learn about the watershed-scale climate collaboratives across the state here!
Meet the Collaboratives
Statewide
11 Watershed-scale Collaborations
MISSION: The Franklin Conservation District launched the Creating Resilient Communities partnership in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene, which devastated large portions of the Deerfield River watershed. The group is committed to making communities more resilient to flooding and the hazards of climate change.
PARTICIPANTS: This group is an association of state and federal agencies, municipal officials, watershed organizations, land trusts, residents, consultants, and researchers that meets periodically to share information and collaborate on research, grant proposals, and restoration initiatives.
MISSION: The Berkshire Cold, Clean, Connected Partnership is a collaboration of environmental organizations with the goal of catalyzing ecological restoration projects in Berkshire rivers and streams that protect cold-water fisheries, remove barriers to aquatic connectivity, and enhance clean, healthy rivers throughout Berkshire County.
PARTICIPANTS: The Partnerships’ participants include Trout Unlimited, Berkshire Regional Planning Commision, Hoosic River Watershed Association, Farmington River Watershed Association, and Berkshire Environmental Action Team.
MISSION: The Connecticut River Watershed Partnership, formerly the Friends of Conte, is a diverse watershed-based coalition formed in 2005 dedicated to forging partnerships that benefit wildlife, people, and environmental quality in the Connecticut River Watershed. Our network of organizations believes in the benefits of working together to accomplish goals in service of the Watershed and together we aspire to foster a collective, inclusive, and shared vision to achieve positive impact across the region. The proximity of people and nature make this an ideal landscape to demonstrate the benefits of nature-based climate solutions for densely populated human communities located throughout the largest watershed in New England.
PARTICIPANTS: The Partnership is currently composed of more than 80 public and private organizations and individuals working across all four major Watershed states (CT, MA, NH, and VT). Mass Audubon currently serves as the fiscal agent for the CRWP and staffs the Partnership through support of a Director.
Merrimack Restoration Partnership
MISSION: The Merrimack Restoration Partnership is still in development and doesn’t yet have a defined mission statement, though its purpose is to restore the health and function of the Merrimack River and its tributaries through the identification, prioritization and implementation of restoration projects. The partnership aims to promote cohesion and collaboration, and build capacity among the many state and federal agencies, NGOs and municipalities working to restore rivers and build climate resiliency through nature-based solutions across the Merrimack River watershed.
PARTICIPANTS: The partnership is currently led by the Merrimack River Watershed Council with the support and guidance of the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration (MA DER) through their Partnerships Program.
MISSION: PIE Rivers works towards increasing the resiliency of three coastal watersheds - Parker, Ipswich and Essex, through communication and collaboration between those involved in watershed restoration, climate resiliency, adaptation, land use and management.
PARTICIPANTS: PIE has a Steering Committee of 10-15 conservation and community leaders working in 28 communities on the North Shore, including a range of organizations, state and federal governmental agencies, academic institutions, and municipalities working on climate resiliency. They also have Working Groups focused on resiliency work in Land Use, Water Quality, Water Conservation, and Stream Continuity.
MISSION: The SuAsCo Climate Resiliency Coalition (CRC) is facilitated by OARS, whose mission is to protect, improve and preserve the Assabet, Sudbury and Concord River (SuAsCo) watersheds for all people and wildlife, with a focus on ecological restoration through science-based advocacy, education and recreation. The CRC aims to build more robust and equitable resilience to climate change impacts in the Assabet, Sudbury and Concord River watershed. The Coalition works collaboratively and regionally to facilitate funding and accelerate implementation of intermunicipal and regional projects that strengthen ecological and social resilience and incorporate downstream and upstream impacts.
PARTICIPANTS: The SuAsCo Climate Resiliency Coalition works across 35 watershed communities.
MISSION: The Blackstone Watershed Collaborative was created to bring diverse partners together in an area that has minimal capacity in municipalities and organizations. It works to ensure a healthier and more resilient watershed by addressing their industrial past, ongoing urbanization, and the impacts of climate change by providing capacity building and technical assistance to the region, with a focus on equity and environmental justice.
PARTICIPANTS: The Collaborative consists of 115 organizations, including municipalities, tribes, non-profits, universities, wastewater treatment facilities, consultants, and others and works across 39 municipalities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
MISSION: The Resilient Mystic Collaborative (RMC) is a Mystic River Watershed-wide voluntary partnership focused on regional climate resilience. The RMC focuses on managing flooding and extreme heat on a regional scale and increasing the resilience of our most vulnerable residents and workers to extreme weather. Over its first four years, the RMC has secured $50 million in grants and financing to pursue on-the-ground projects.
PARTICIPANTS: Convened by the Mystic River Watershed Association in September 2018, the RMC is led by senior staff from 20 cities and towns plus content experts on environmental justice, public health, and resilient land use and architecture.
MISSION: To work collaboratively to increase climate resilience for people, and the natural ecosystems in the Charles River watershed by taking a regional approach to implementing climate adaptation and mitigation solutions.
PARTICIPANTS: A coalition of twenty-five watershed communities taking a watershed approach to climate adaptation and mitigation to address precipitation-based flooding, sea level rise, extreme heat, and ecosystem health through regional collaboration and information sharing.
MISSION: The Neponset Climate Adaptation Collaborative is led by the Neponset River Watershed Association (NepRWA), whose mission is to clean, protect and improve access to the Neponset River, its tributaries and watershed lands. The mission of the Collaborative is still in the works, though the goal is to bring together all of the municipalities within our watershed to identify shared climate adaptation priorities and develop a framework for regional collaboration to improve resilience throughout the watershed. The program is working through an MVP Action grant awarded to the Town of Dedham to develop a Climate Adaptation Collaborative Framework, using existing data and engaging municipal decision makers around identifying regional priorities. Simultaneously, the Collaborative is mapping non-municipal stakeholders around the watershed to engage in advocacy work to advance priority projects.
PARTICIPANTS: The Collaborative is composed of the 12 municipalities of Dedham, Boston, Canton, Foxborough, Medfield, Milton, Norwood, Quincy, Sharon, Stoughton, Walpole, and Westwood as well as the Neponset Watershed Association and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC).
MISSION: The Resilient Taunton Watershed Network (RTWN) promotes the resiliency of the Taunton Watershed in the face of climate change and development, considering ecological outcomes as well as economic, social, and environmental justice issues.
PARTICIPANTS: RTWN is a network of 20 local, non-profit, state, regional, and federal groups working to advance resiliency across the watershed. The Network and our bi-monthly meetings are organized by the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District (SRPEDD, the regional planning agency).
MISSION: The Buzzards Bay Watershed Restoration Partnership (BBWRP) works to increase the quality and quantity of ecological restoration implemented in the Buzzards Bay watershed region that address and incorporate features that allow the sites to adapt and be resilient to climate change.
PARTICIPANTS: The BBWRP is a collective of 42 municipal entities, conservation and other organizations working together. The group has been convened and is led by the Buzzards Bay Coalition (BBC), with support and guidance from the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration (MA DER) through the DER-Partnership Program.
Successful Project Examples
PIE Rivers Partnership:
In 2019, the PIE Rivers Partnership received a grant from the Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Partnership to produce a report on barrier mitigation in the Great Marsh . Building on previous assessments of road-stream crossings and dams, they produced a list of priority barriers, taking into account infrastructure needs of municipalities, site-specific information on the hurdles to implementation, new tidal barrier assessment data, and partners' input. The results are now being used to pursue funding to address these priority barriers. Having a clear regional assessment and planning document to refer to is accelerating the pace of implementation projects throughout the watersheds.
Charles River Climate Compact:
The Charles River Flood Model (CRFM) is a watershed-scale planning tool developed to support watershed communities in planning for the expected stormwater and riverine flooding impacts of climate change. The CRFM was developed by twenty watershed communities in partnership with Charles River Watershed Association. Weston & Sampson was the project technical lead. Read a summary of project findings in this November 2022 WBUR article .
Resilient Mystic Collaborative (RMC)
The Wicked Hot Mystic project engaged volunteer community scientists to collect relative temperature and air quality data during a heatwave. This data was used to create heat and air quality maps to identify the neighborhoods with highest extreme heat burden. It also helped increase community engagement and communicate the data to civic partners, community groups, and the broader public. This project was co-sponsored by the Boston Museum of Science and Metropolitan Area Planning Council. The Wicked Cool Mystic follow-up will involve community members in creating solutions to stay cool.
Get Involved
We hope you have found the collaborative nearest to you! We asked our existing climate collaborative leaders, “What is a lesson learned for other collaboratives just getting started? How do new folks engage in this work?”
- Climate Change Doesn’t Follow Political Boundaries! Regional collaboration is essential for preparing for climate change. In the absence of a strong state and federal response, many cities and towns are stepping up and taking proactive leadership roles in climate change adaptation, but individual towns can’t face this monumental challenge alone. - Robert Kearns, Charles River Compact
- Seek out those who are already doing the work you are hoping to do in your region and find ways you can work together and enhance each other’s work - no need to duplicate efforts! - Danica Belknap, RTWN
- Just jump in! Do what makes sense for your region. The most important thing to do is create a space for people to engage and talk about these complex, critical issues around climate resilience and work together to create solutions. Encourage a diverse group of partners to participate, leaving space for those voices that are often under-represented or have minimal capacity, whether through direct membership, targeted outreach, or one-on-one conversations. - Stefanie Covino, Blackstone Watershed Collaborative
Check out the rest of the Watershed Scale Climate Collaboration Toolkit for more!
