Clearinghouse for Cleaner Water: University of Minnesota Hub

A team from the University of Minnesota (UMN) Extension is creating the Watershed Engagement Programming (WEP) Hub to support watershed-related outreach and engagement efforts to help address the state’s efforts to improve water quality. The team decided to create the Hub after surveying several dozen soil and water conservationists about the challenges they are encountering.

The Hub, still under development, will contain a library of resources and tools that will help soil and water conservation districts (SWCDs), watershed districts (WDs), and other local government and environmental entities create powerful and effective outreach, engagement, and education programs. The Hub will link to and highlight existing materials from a variety of sources and will contain new resources that have been created based on the results of the needs assessment and iterative feedback from the WEP advisory team and its target audience.

The team is implementing best practices for building a clearinghouse. They are considering online platform selection, web development, digital accessibility, and copyright and material ownership issues.