Watersheds are very complex but knowing a little about how the whole system works first makes it easier for us all to understand and work on individual problems. The following documents are intended to help in getting this big picture. Note: Download from a 56k connection may take longer than 10 seconds.

Little Campbell Creek Watershed Plan
The Municipality of Anchorage is working to better understand the watershed and to develop a watershed plan that can help protect the existing beneficial social, environmental, and economic uses of the watershed. At the same time, the plan will also address ways that these uses can be improved in areas where natural watershed function is impaired due to past land use decisions in the Little Campbell Creek Watershed.
Little Campbell Creek Watershed Plan

Anchorage Rain Gardens
The Municipality of Anchorage's Watershed Management Services is proud to present Alaska's first cost-share program for installation of rain gardens. A rain garden is a depression in the landscape designed to catch and filter stormwater that runs off your roof, driveway, walkway, lawns and other compacted serfaces. The Municipality of Anchorage has developed a Rain Garden Guidance Manual to help you create a rain garden in your backyard. For more information about rain gardens or to download the Rain Garden Guidance Manual visit the rain garden website using the link below.
Anchorage Rain Gardens

The Science of Urban Storm Water Control
This document provides the reader with an overview of how an Anchorage urban watershed works and how what we do in a watershed affects it. It also describes some limits, or thresholds, to how much we may want to change our watersheds and some basic guidance in deciding where to start first in improving our watershed.
The Science of Urban Storm Water Control: An Anchorage Perspective (PDF: 2,9334k - 34 pages)

Anchorage Bugalogue
Macro-invertebrates are not only critical to other animals that live in the water, they also provide us a powerful way to see how we are doing in managing our streams and lakes. The WMS Bugalogue is full of educational information about microscopic critters that reside in Anchorage 's streams and is well suited for children ages 8 and above (and for adults too).
Anchorage Bugalogue (PDF: 5,479k - 61 pages)

Fecal Coliform in Anchorage Streams
Fecal coliform, has been measured at elevated concentrations in many Anchorage streams. As an indicator of other microorganisms that can affect our health, it is important for us to understand why we have such high levels of this pollutant in our streams. This document is a technical summary of what we know about fecal coliform in Anchorage streams with some thoughts about why we see such high concentrations of this pollutant. It also includes a selected bibliography of reference information for the interested or technical reader who wants to know more.
Fecal Coliform in Anchorage Streams: Sources and Transport Processes (PDF: 2,528k - 68 pages)

Economic Benefits of Urban Greenways in Anchorage
As Anchorage residents, we live so close to the Alaska wild that its all too easy for us to overlook both the recreational and dollar value of natural greenspace right in our own urban backyards. This document summarizes current national research that shows a critical link between the quality of a city’s greenspace corridors and its prospects for keeping business revenues and growth rate up while keeping tax rates down.
Economic Benefits of Urban Greenways in Anchorage (PDF: 181k, 14 pages)

A watershed is an area of land drained by a single stream network. A watershed collects water falling on its land surfaces and directs the resulting runoff to its stream network. This means that what we do anywhere within each watershed can impact the watershed's streams and drainageways. Thus, identifying and mapping individual watersheds provides us with powerful tools for managing storm water, floodflows and riparian function. To help us manage our storm water, WMS has carefully mapped the boundaries of watershed features in the Anchorage area. The following maps provide a birds-eye view of our watersheds.

Watersheds - Upper Cook Inlet (PDF: 962k - 1 page)
Watersheds - Anchorage Bowl (PDF: 648k - 1 page)
Watersheds - Knik Arm (PDF: 654k - 1 page)
Watersheds - Turnagain Arm (PDF: 813k - 1 page)

For other more detailed maps and atlases of Anchorage's streams, wetlands and drainage systems, visit our Library pages.

Live Map
To create and tour your own photobase map view of Anchorage watersheds showing streams, lakes, wetlands, marine shorelines, drainage systems, roads and other geographic features (including perhaps your own house), try our interactive on-line map at Live Map (GIS link).