HPWA works in a 1,500 square mile landscape encompassing the Gallinas, Tecolote, Sapello, and lower Mora Watersheds. These head-water watersheds affect vast areas downstream covering the Pecos, Canadian, Arkansas, and Mississippi watersheds. We are all connected – what we do locally affects many others downstream. This section helps to familiarize you with our watersheds.
What is a Watershed
A watershed is nature’s way of connecting the landscape. Every raindrop, snowflake, and trickle of runoff has somewhere to go, and a watershed is the area of land that guides all that water toward a common stream, river, or wetland. It is like a giant living bowl, with hills, forests, grasslands, and creeks all working together to move and hold water. Watersheds do far more than carry water downhill. They create habitat, support wildlife, nourish plants, recharge soils, and help sustain the communities that live within them. Once you see a watershed as a connected system instead of just a body of water, the whole landscape starts to make a lot more sense.
