Watershed Regeneration Action Plan
A community-based, youth and Tribal co-led planning process to heal communities, lands, and waters through interdependent regenerative solutions including policy change, design of the built environment, and land care practices.
Based on a robust community engagement and co-design process, incorporating citizen science and technical expert knowledge, the WRAP characterizes existing watershed conditions and prioritizes site-specific solutions. Our WRAP will incorporate EPA nine-element Watershed Planning principles within a broad community-based plan for funding, implementing, and evaluating site-specific regenerative interventions, and serve as an EPA 319 plan for our watershed.
Taking a regenerative approach differs from many other traditional watershed restoration efforts.
It focuses on a systems view of water quality challenges and solves them at their source by redesigning human systems to work with nature’s inherent capacity to heal and flourish.
We have developed a regenerative framework and approach for the watershed as part of our Bioregional Regeneration Strategy.
The WRAP works to address multiple interdependent challenges throughout the Mystic River Watershed. Using the Living Atlas and community input through our in-person events and observation app as our knowledge base, explained in our watershed story map, we will describe:
Boundaries and jurisdictions, including Treaty lands, federal, state, and local regulatory overlays, and their related rights and responsibilities for individuals, organizations, and institutions
Social and demographic conditions of our human communities
Land relations that support food, fiber, fuel systems
Historic and cultural factors shaping human relationships with the watershed
The state of infrastructure and the built environment
Climatic and environmental hazards like flooding, extreme heat, and weather
Current water quality status and trends
Biodiversity and Habitats
Timeline and Process
The process for our WRAP includes a kick off event at Waterfest (September) 2025 to introduce the collaborative planning effort, and a series of mini-planning workshops in fall/winter 2025/6 with different watershed communities to familiarize people with the Living Atlas and the WRAP goals. We will also use these workshops to train locals to use the observation app to identify specific areas and systems they would like to see conserved or transformed.
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Partner Organizations
This work builds on our LISCIF, SeaGrant funded climate vulnerability analysis, CT DEEP and CIRCA funded Living Atlas, The Nature Conservancy funded bioregional regeneration strategy, and support from numerous partner organizations who we extend our deep gratitude to.