City staff presented a 23‑year remote‑sensing desertification risk assessment of Boulder‑area lands and previewed a new Climate Resilient Landscapes Challenge, and a public commenter urged the board to support a proposed change to the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan that would prioritize upgrades to century‑old irrigation ditches.

The Nature‑Based Climate Solutions team told the Environmental Advisory Board the assessment used satellite data and other remote sensing to estimate current condition and trends across city and county properties through 2023. A staff member from the team summarized the project’s goal as testing whether the city can “develop a system for assessing the condition of our landscapes and their change over time” so managers can identify areas at risk of ecological decline.

The staff presentation said Boulder’s 40,000 acres of open space contain an estimated 2,700,000 metric tons of carbon, and on a good year the city’s landscapes could sequester roughly 20,000 tons of carbon — far less than the community’s roughly 1,200,000 metric tons of annual emissions. The analysis also found some years when landscapes were net carbon sources because of wildfire and other disturbances. The presenter cited wind and dust events as examples of on‑the‑ground loss, saying one property lost “something in the order of 15 to 30,000 tons of soil” in a single event that blew away topsoil.

The remote analysis divided condition into negative, neutral and positive classes and reported that county lands showed a somewhat more degraded signal than city lands. Staff said the pixel‑level approach — reading condition inside parcel boundaries rather than a single parcel average — revealed within‑parcel variation such as ponds or prairie‑dog colonies that affect condition readings. The team recommended repeating the analysis in two to three years to measure whether recent restoration work is producing measurable change.

Public comment from Elizabeth Blackwell, who identified herself as a resident and community researcher, urged the board to support a proposed change to the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan. “Boulder’s ag water delivery system depends on a 160‑year‑old legacy irrigation ditches,” Blackwell said, and she asked the board to back policy language that would direct the city and county to partner with ditch companies, farmers and ranchers “to upgrade our ag water delivery systems to maximize ag water efficiencies and to ensure the survival of viable agriculture in the Boulder Valley.”

Staff said the assessment includes an initial water‑rights review intended to help prioritize properties by the likelihood that irrigation can be sustained. The presenters cautioned that artificially irrigated plant mixes are particularly vulnerable if water deliveries become less reliable: where lands depend on irrigation, “if those landscapes cannot continue to be irrigated, there’s a very high probability that you’ll see” loss of vegetation and subsequent soil erosion, a staff member said.

The presentation also previewed a city initiative, the Climate Resilient Landscapes Challenge, described by Lauren Friels of the Nature‑Based Solutions team as a community mobilization and competition to elevate examples of urban landscapes that are water‑wise, lower maintenance and more biodiverse. “We’re talking about climate‑resilient landscapes that use less water, release less carbon, require less maintenance, and produce cooling in our microclimates,” Friels said. The draft program would include an existing‑landscape competition and a proposed‑project track offering seed funding; staff said they expect marketing and outreach through winter and spring, an entry deadline around July, garden tours in August and final presentations in September.

Board members and attendees asked about technical details, including how the satellite‑based NDVI greenness measure can confuse desirable perennial cover with invasive or ephemeral groundcover, and whether emerging drone and public‑sector data sources (for example, Google/Earth Engine datasets and university “Earth Lab” resources) could lower future costs. Staff said the first cycle cost was “a couple $100,000” (noting county cost‑share) and that repeat cycles should be less expensive and better targeted now that methods are established.

Staff emphasized next steps would focus on ground‑truthing key sites, refining condition thresholds, integrating water‑rights and management data, and testing whether coordinated city‑county projects can produce measurable landscape improvement. Commissioner Stoltzmann (referenced by staff) has called for a meeting between city and county staff to explore a joint project on the most degraded lands, staff said.

The presentation and public comment linked the issues of water delivery, land management and wildfire risk. Staff framed water‑cycle recovery — getting live roots and continuous cover that retain water — as the principal management objective in semi‑arid landscapes, with carbon sequestration as a secondary benefit.

City staff said the assessment and challenge materials are publicly funded and will be made available to land managers; they recommended limited external publicity while the project remains in an early testing stage. They urged board members and interested community groups to engage in the upcoming steering‑committee process for the challenge and to review the full risk‑assessment materials and the city water utility’s drought planning documents for technical context.

The board did not take any formal policy vote on the assessment or the challenge during the meeting; staff sought feedback and said they will return with refined materials and a proposed timeline for repeat analysis and pilot projects.