The Mississippi River Watershed Partnership Workshop was held in St. Louis, Missouri on June 25 – 27, 2024. Designed with input from the Upper Mississippi River Association, the Ohio River Basin Association, the Red River Valley Association, the Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee, and other consulting partners, the goal was to provide a venue to share work being done in each Basin and to explore how a partnership could add value to an already robust body of work within the Mississippi River Watershed.

Given the complexity and diversity of issues in the Watershed, bringing people together created an opportunity to develop a common understanding and shared language around previously identified key issues: water quality, floods and droughts, inland navigation, fish and wildlife and recreation and gave space to understand the leadership challenges in the Watershed. 

Workshop Highlights

The event brought together over 100 leaders and scientists from 21 states and the District of Columbia representing 8 federal agencies, 13 state agencies, 27 non-governmental organizations, 7 corporations, and 5 academic institutions. This highly engaged group of professionals brought their extensive experience and diverse perspectives on Mississippi River Watershed challenges and the work being done from the local to the national level. To read the findings in full, click here.

Over the course of the fall of 2024, Working groups for each of the goal areas met to determine the priority goals and actions of each goal area. These were presented to over 150 partners during a webinar on December 17, 2025. View the recording here.

The Mississippi River Watershed Partnership Workshop was held in St. Louis, Missouri on January 14, 2025. Designed in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, AWI hosted over 40 leaders from the working groups in order to discuss potential organizational structures for the Partnerships.