Introduction

The San Miguel Watershed contains 1,450 square miles, which is around one million acres, or 44 billion square feet. Of course, this is a nonsense. It is the mapmakers view, as though one was looking straight down on a flat smooth surface. It is a view that is only shared in the real life of the Watershed by surveyors and the San Miguel and Montrose County Assessors. To everyone else the Watershed is a gnarly three dimensional piece of land containing high peaks and deep valleys. For most, even the overall shape of the Watershed is unknown, its boundary vague.

Curiously, to the scientific view, armed with fractal geometry at this turning point of millennia, the size of the Watershed is more like the common view - it gets bigger the closer you look. As you dip down among the mountains and valleys, the slopes wrinkle into little draws and hills and the town plans wrinkle into buildings; the area of the Watershed increases. Still closer, as slopes turn into rocks and plants, into specks of crystal and flecks of dust, the area of the Watershed expands towards the infinite. Even the boundary of the Watershed gets longer and longer, and less and less certain, as one looks at the fine detail of whether water flows towards or away from the San Miguel River when it falls on this rock or that tree. And what about those areas so dry that all precipitation usually evaporates? Are they part of a watershed at all?

So, for us atlas-builders, from the time we started looking more and more closely at the Watershed, it has become more and more varied, interesting and complex. To think of the Watershed is to think of the place where we live in a way that the "unnatural" political boundaries of towns or counties or states could never be. The Watershed is not our piece of the nation as much as it is our piece of the planet. And to think of the Watershed is to consider a set of responsibilities that go beyond the political responsibilities that attend citizenship in those towns and counties and states. To inhabit the Watershed is to be a steward of it -to actively share concern and responsibility for the health of its natural systems. These natural systems include, of course, not only the ecosystems but the human systems, the settlements, the societies, the cultures, the economies.

This atlas is not just a book of maps. Instead, we have tried to present the diversity and complexity of this amazing corner of the world, its shape, its plants and animals, its towns and ranches, all tied together by the element on which they all depend for existence, the flow of clean, fresh water.

Mission statement: The San Miguel Watershed Atlas

The Atlas of the San Miguel Watershed is focused on developing, producing and making widely available high quality spatial and written information, based on excellent science, reflecting both expert academic and profound local understanding of the many elements which make up this extraordinary place. This is in order to give citizens, visitors, and particularly the children, a clear view of the Watershed and its many relationships, and help equip them to cultivate sound habits, institutions and policies which support the long-term health of the San Miguel River and its communities.

Goals and objectives

The Atlas will be made up of a large number of maps of the area, together with graphs, charts, photographs, articles and essays. The maps go far beyond the usual "road map" approach, and use GIS technology to show landscape and community patterns in interesting and useful ways. The contents will include maps of wildlife areas and corridors, river and riparian data, vegetation types, land use patterns, land ownership data, precipitation and water use information, demographic, economic and transportation patterns, etc. All maps will be based upon the most recent scientific data available. Data sources and accuracy will be identified.

Mapping and GIS work on this project started ten years ago, and has been supported by grant aid from federal, state and local governments, from industry, and from foundations. It has also been supported by both the volunteered and the paid time of a number of local citizens with the academic credentials required for this work.

Format and distribution

Subject to funding, the Atlas will be available in three formats:

  as a large format (18"W x 12"H) full color publication for purchase
  as a CD-ROM at a cost of about $25
  as a free downloadable internet site

We hope to provide free copies of the printed publication to all financial contributors, schools and libraries and to all school-age children in the watershed.