Resources
Project Proposals
Peaks to People Project Selection Process
This document outlines how Peaks to People evaluates project proposals.
Peaks to People Project Data Requirements July 2023
This document outlines the data required to be considered for funding.
New Project Funding Request Questionnaire July 2023
This Questionnaire must be completed and submitted to be considered for funding.
Tools
Watershed Investment Tool 2.0 2020 Update
This document provides technical details on the Peaks to People Water Fund Watershed Investment Tool 2020 updates. The purpose of this update is to refresh the data products in the Watershed Investment Tool (WIT) to reflect changed conditions on the landscape. These modifications include:
• Updating spatial records of accomplished fuel treatments across all agencies,
• Updating spatial records of planned fuel treatments across all agencies,
• Updating fuels to reflect past fuel treatments and the 2020 wildfires,
• Remodeling fire behavior for current conditions in the WIT, and
• Adjusting burn probability for the 2020 wildfires.
We then report on how these updates change the spatial distribution of wildfire risk to water supplies and priorities for treatment across the full Peaks to People planning area and the Big Thompson Initiative landscape.
We update the WIT when the landscape changes dramatically, when our input data or technical modeling advances, or if we need to change geographic extent. Our next update will be in 2023.
Watershed Investment Tool Technical User Guide
This document provides technical details on the Peaks to People Water Fund Watershed Investment Tool. The first section of the user guide covers the modeling approach and limitations with references to the supporting science. The second section covers the input data requirements and GIS pre-processing workflow in sufficient detail for an experienced GIS user to replicate the analysis. The third section covers proper use of the Watershed Investment Tool for anticipated workflows.
Co-Benefits Calculator Technical User Guide
The Co-benefits Calculator is designed to estimate the benefits of fuels treatment to resources at risk to wildfire. The co-benefits calculator utilizes the same principles behind the Wildfire Risk Assessment Framework (Scott et al. 2013), with slight changes to maintain consistency with the Watershed Investment Tool (WIT).
Program Information
Resources for Building Water Funds
Watershed investment programs, also known as water funds, are our best chance to protect the natural resources our survival depends on. Information is provided here on the basics of water fund development along with links to more detailed resources.
Peaks to People Treatment Monitoring Guidelines
This document provides a broad set of forest management goals, treatment guidelines, and monitoring criteria to guide the development of projects under the Peaks to People Water Fund. This document is intended to serve as a starting point for the design and monitoring of initial projects, but should be considered a “living” document to be updated and modified as the water fund continues to develop.
Monitoring Reports
Peaks to People Water Fund invests in strategically placed forest restoration and fuel reduction treatments to mitigate wildfire risk to water supplies and other values in the Cache la Poudre and Big Thompson watersheds. We partner with the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute (CFRI) to develop and apply monitoring tools that measure outcomes of these investments. The aim of this monitoring program is to ensure investments are developed to be strategic and impactful, to measure progress towards achieving project and program goals, and to support continued learning and improvement with Peaks to People stakeholders.
2022 Pole Hill Monitoring Summary
Peaks to People Water Fund provided funding for the Pole Hill restoration project to thin the forest and reduce fuel loading in a high fire risk area adjacent to residential homes and utility infrastructure. This report summarizes changes to forest structure, surface fuels, and modeled fire behavior following treatment in addition to comparing modeled fire behavior informed by field monitoring data to the fire behavior predictions from the Watershed Investment Tool (WIT).
2021 Elkhorn Monitoring Summary
This report presents monitoring results from the Ben Delatour Scout Ranch Elkhorn 4 prescribed fire to measure how well site level project goals were met, and to compare field-based outcome measures with modeled landscape data inputs for the Watershed Investment Tool.
2018 Ecological Monitoring Report for Peaks to People Water Fund Demonstration Sites
The analyses of modeled fire behavior by the Colorado Restoration Institute, CSU and The Nature Conservancy suggest that Peaks to People forest restoration treatments enhanced forest resilience to wildfire within most management areas by changing conditions at demonstration sites to support low- to mixed-severity fire regimes.
Additional Reports
The Right Work in the Right Places: Prioritizing Fuels Reduction to Protect Water Supplies
Because of the high cost of forest management and immense size of some municipal watersheds, prioritizing the type and location of fuels reduction treatments is critical. RADS uses information on fuel treatment risk reduction, feasibility, and cost to identify the most effective fuel treatment types and locations to reduce wildfire risk to water supplies.
A Preliminary Green – Gray Analysis for the Cache la Poudre and Big Thompson Watersheds of Colorado’s Front Range
In this report the Center for Sustainable Economy (CSE) and World Resources Institute (WRI) have partnered with the Center for Collaborative Conservation to investigate the potential cost savings associated with investments in green infrastructure solutions to water quality issues in the Cache la Poudre and Big Thompson Watersheds of Colorado’s Front Range.
Links
Photo Credit: © City of Fort Collins, CO