Watershed Context

Yolo County's Willow Slough Watershed contains 131,000 acres running from the Blue Ridge in the coast range eastward toward the Yolo Bypass and between the Cache Creek and Putah Creek watersheds on the north and south, respectively.  Union School Slough, the subject of the project described below, is a sub-watershed of Willow Slough.

Project History

 In early 1999, Audubon-California received CALFED Ecosystem Restoration Program (ERP) funding for a joint project with the Yolo County Resource Conservation District called the Union School Slough Watershed Improvement   Program. This first-ever, watershed-wide project focused on working with landowners within the watershed to install conservation projects that helped: (1) solve management problems; (2) complemented the working landscape, and (3) provided habitat for local wildlife.

Three years later, in the fall of 2001, the Yolo RCD received CALFED ERP funding for the Lower Union School Slough Watershed Improvement Program – a continuation of the earlier program, but with a significant water quality focus. The program was built on previous work and included a watershed-wide and site-specific monitoring program with implementation of additional restoration, conservation and education projects with new landowners. It also included the development of a web-based farming practices and conservation effects estimation tool for landowner and professional use.

All the activities of these projects supported the adoption of the recommendations of the Willow Slough Watershed Integrated Resources Management Plan (1996). The goal of the Plan is to support implementation of conservation activities that maintain and improve agricultural sustainability, wildlife habitat and water quality over vast acreages of the Willow Slough watershed and Yolo County,and to ultimately benefit the California Bay- Delta watershed. 

Seven years of projects and research on a 26 sq. mile watershed, and all its challenges, have finally been brought to a close in 2005.  This project was  paired with the Willow Slough Watershed Rangeland Stewardship Program to provide continuity between upper and lower watershed resource improvements. Project participants continue to build on the knowledge gained while completing these innovative, collaborative projects. To read more about many of the practices that were piloted and monitored during these projects, please refer to our On-Farm Practices folder.