River Recreation Working Group

Evaluate and refine the inventory of current conditions at recreational reaches and individual recreation sites (“pearls").

Continue to develop desired conditions for recreational reaches and/or individual recreation sites/pearls.

Initiate visitor use monitoring that includes social surveys, rapid recreation site surveys, visitor use data collection (particularly on number of visitors, length of stay, length of travel, reason for visit) and correlated to support future trends tabulations.

• Use survey data to inform the Verde Front in identifying important indicators and thresholds to inform recreation management activities.

Continue the Verde Front’s collective work in moving through the visitor use management framework process, including:

• The identification of “triggers” based on the indicators and thresholds identified for monitoring recreation use;

• Development of management actions in response to triggers;

• Determine appropriate capacity to achieve desired conditions on the ground;

• Incorporate monitoring for ongoing adaptive management.

Involve Verde Front partners and Leadership Council members in the collaborative effort to develop the indicators and thresholds for the Verde Watershed Report Card, bringing priorities for sustainable recreation management to the table in building the Report Card framework.

Use the results from the Verde Watershed Report Card to identify indicators and thresholds to continue informing visitor use management strategies for the Verde Front and its working groups.

Develop a comprehensive and robust map (for internal use) of river access points, significant landmarks or features, and extraction points for use by emergency response personnel, law enforcement offices, and other safety staff. 

• This can be used by dispatchers to direct search-and-rescue teams and LEOs to the correct recreational areas for incidents.

Explore the potential for boosting cell service or other signal to areas of the river corridor where service is currently blacked out or unreliable. 

• River managers should note that Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office has four portable repeaters that can enhance signal and range for police bandwidths for use in emergencies.

Convene an annual gathering of all regional law enforcement agencies, emergency response personnel, public safety officials, and public land management staff. 

• The purpose would be to conduct a coordinated, region-wide briefing about the past year’s recreational management and incident reports to identify trends, emerging problems or challenges, or simply to communicate about recreation management and safety.

Examine the possibility for obtaining information to provide advance warning of flood events and weather hazards along the Verde River corridor.  

Work to ensure better coordination of public safety officials in making use of existing systems.  

A longer-term goal would be to put a comprehensive system in place to monitor flows along the recreational stretches of the Verde River.

Work with local outfitters and other recreation-related businesses to encourage and promote advance planning by recreational users to ensure that people are prepared with the right safety equipment (PFDs, maps) to have a positive and safe experience.