HEALTHY WATERSHEDS
HEALTHY COMMUNITIES
Los Angeles River Watershed Monitoring Program
Learn about your LA River through our water quality monitoring.
Engagement
Tools
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Watershed Connections Activity Booklet
About Us
The Council for Watershed Health (CWH) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded 20 years ago by environmental advocate Dorothy Green. Our mission is to advance the health and sustainability of our region's watersheds, rivers, streams and habitat - both in natural areas and urban neighborhoods. We do this through science-based research, education and inclusive stakeholder engagement. Our 2025 Vision is for a Los Angeles region that is a model of sustainable, urban watershed management. The region's watersheds are managed to promote ecological, social, and economic health, with clean waters, reliable local water supplies, restored native habitats, ample parks and open spaces, integrated flood management and revitalized rivers and urban centers.
What is a Watershed?
No matter where you live and how much or how little water is nearby, you live in a watershed. A watershed is a region, or drainage basin, that drains into a common water body such as a river, lake, ocean or estuary.
Put simply, a watershed can be thought of as an area of land that sheds water into a water body. The water moves through a network of drainage pathways, both underground and on the surface (streams), that converge into progressively larger bodies of water as the water moves on downstream, eventually reaching all the way to the ocean!