Community-based organizations and Tribal representatives are gathering perspectives from local communities to address climate resilience.
Rivers & Lands Conservancy was recently invited by the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority (SAWPA) to support efforts to develop a “Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plan” for the Santa Ana River Watershed; an area that spans from the mountains in San Bernardino, through the inland valleys of Riverside, all the way to the coast in Orange County. One of the many goals of the Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plan, also known as the “CARP,” is to incorporate local perspectives from individuals living and working throughout the watershed.
Efforts to develop a CARP for the Santa Ana River Watershed are spearheaded by lead project administrator, SAWPA.The Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority (SAWPA) was formed in 1975 as a joint power authority under California law. It is composed of five member agencies; Eastern Municipal Water District, Inland Empire Utilities Agency, Orange County Water District, San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District, and Western Municipal Water District. The key partnering stakeholders on the project include the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians and the Inland Southern California Climate Collaborative/University of California, Riverside (ISC3/UCR). Additional groups who will be supporting the CARP include public water agencies, transportation agencies, power providers, Tribal communities, and community-based organizations such as Rivers & Lands Conservancy, TreePeople, Sierra Club, and Inland Empire Waterkeeper.
Recognizing that climate change has the potential for further impacts to our communities for decades to come, the development of the CARP for the Santa Ana River Watershed is a multi-pronged effort. The CARP will identify climate risks and create plans and strategies to address challenges such as drought, wildfire, extreme heat, sea level rise and flooding. Using this information and input from stakeholders, strategies for local and regional adaptation will be developed. This will include a roadmap to implement plans for future collaboration across water, flood, groundwater, quality, forest, ecosystem, and land use sectors.
The Santa Ana River Watershed CARP is supported by the Regional Resilience Grant Program at the Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (LCI). The Regional Resilience Grant Program is an initiative of LCI’s Integrated Climate Adaptation and Resiliency Program (ICARP). ICARP advances climate adaptation and resilience in California by coordinating investments, partnerships and climate science to ensure people, natural systems, and the built environment are protected, prepared, and thrive in the face of climate change.
Community participation in this plan is a critical component to gathering information about how individual communities are currently impacted and the public’s concerns about further impacts. Community members can participate and share their thoughts by attending a community workshop, listening session, or open house to share their thoughts and concerns. The unique insight and responses from individuals will help shape local programs and future funding to protect our built community and our natural, wild, and open spaces within the Santa Ana River Watershed from climate change impacts.
Community members can also answer a quick, five-minute survey to share their thoughts on which climate change impacts most concern them, climate-related vulnerabilities they have personally experienced, and the programs they would like to see implemented to address them. Rivers & Lands Conservancy will be sharing information and encouraging the community to participate in the survey throughout 2026 at in-person community events and through social media platforms. We hope you will visit us at events where we are tabling and take a minute to get more information and fill out the survey online.
CARP Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BGKYV5P
