Region: Intermountain West Region

  • Video: Sustaining Wetlands & Watersheds with Flood-Irrigated Grass Hay

    Video: Sustaining Wetlands & Watersheds with Flood-Irrigated Grass Hay

    Riparian corridors are lifelines for the wildlife and communities of the Intermountain West. These corridors are home to many of the region’s wetlands and are sustained by seasonal water cycles. This means that the wildlife that depends on wetlands, from migratory waterbirds to big game animals, can often be found using riparian areas.  Much of…

  • Low-Tech Methods to Promote Healthy Streams and Meadows: A Factsheet

    Low-Tech Methods to Promote Healthy Streams and Meadows: A Factsheet

    Learn about simple, low-tech methods that help promote healthy streams and meadows by slowing runoff, spreading water, and boosting productivity. Learn About Low-Tech Restoration Practices As low-tech methods to restore healthy streams and meadows are implemented across the West, more and more people are becoming aware of these approaches. We created a factsheet in online…

  • Annual Operational Plan

    Annual Operational Plan

    Annual operational plan The Intermountain West Joint Venture’s Annual Operational Plan establishes the priorities, activities, and budget for the current federal fiscal year. This operational plan focuses our team on efforts that help us realize the highest possible return on investment as we support habitat conservation through partnerships across 486 million acres of the West.

  • Field Notes

    Field Notes

    In this series of first-person essays, we are sharing stories from wildly different “fields” traveled by the conservation community. Scroll to view this storymap, or see it full size here.

  • The IWJV Celebrates the Power of Partnerships

    The IWJV Celebrates the Power of Partnerships

    The IWJV’s organizational philosophy can simply be described as a deep recognition that people are fundamental to the story of conservation in the West. As a partnership-fueled entity, metrics of success cannot always be shown qualitatively, but the impacts of the work are still incredibly meaningful. We took that concept to heart by soliciting narrations…

  • High But Not Dry

    High But Not Dry

    An article in Western Confluence magazine explores the places where flood irrigation might be doing more good than harm. Every spring, Chris Williams looks forward to seeing the terns alight on the meadows of the southern Wyoming ranch that he manages. It’s a fleeting sight—the birds are there for one day and then they’re gone, off…

  • IWJV Featured in “On the Ground” Podcast

    IWJV Featured in “On the Ground” Podcast

    The IWJV’s Partnering to Conserve Sagebrush Rangelands is featured in a new episode of the Bureau of Bureau of Land Management’s podcast, On the Ground. Listen here!: The episode interviews Grace Hershberg and Ethan Kalinowski. These two members of the IWJV’s Sage Capacity Team are stationed in different corners of Montana to facilitate ecological restoration…

  • Hope & Desert Springs on the Summit Lake Paiute Reservation

    Hope & Desert Springs on the Summit Lake Paiute Reservation

    Strengthening relationships synergizes conservation results and hope across fencelines, landownerships, and communities. Upon cresting the south ridge of the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe’s land, the entirety of their 14,000-acre reservation is revealed with a shimmering lake at its heart. Green ribbons of riparian-lush creeks thread down sagebrush slopes to feed the lake, which supports a…

  • Science Q&A: Flood Irrigation and Groundwater Recharge

    Science Q&A: Flood Irrigation and Groundwater Recharge

    Water is the West’s most precious resource, and yet there is so much we don’t know about it. How are groundwater supplies and aquifers—as well as rivers and streams—affected by return flows from surrounding wetlands and agricultural fields? What happens to irrigation water after it helps grow crops and forage for livestock? Moreover, how do…

  • Learning more about how irrigation intensification impacts sustainability of streamflow in the Western United States

    Learning more about how irrigation intensification impacts sustainability of streamflow in the Western United States

    A Q&A with David Ketchum, USGS remote sensing and geospatial information specialist David Ketchum’s research with the University of Montana, Irrigation intensification impacts sustainability of streamflow in the Western United States, looks into the relationship between irrigation intensification and in-stream flows in watersheds across the western United States. As climate-change-induced drought impacts water availability for…