The Saginaw Bay Watershed is crucial to Michigan’s agricultural economy, but farming practices have contributed to water quality challenges. The Nature Conservancy’s Regenerative Agriculture Program promotes sustainable solutions like reduced tillage and cover cropping to improve soil health and reduce pollution. While these efforts benefit the environment, their impact on human well-being remains largely unexplored.

This 2024 Dow Fellows project helps to bridge that gap. Drawing from successful models in Puget Sound, Lake Erie, and Chesapeake Bay, the project analyzed key metrics aligned with the EPA’s Human Well-Being Index to track the connections between environmental health and community well-being.

The project team identified key human well-being indicators that could be integrated into the Saginaw Bay Monitoring Consortium’s water quality dashboard. This integration would enhance the dashboard’s ability to track both environmental health and community well-being, providing a more comprehensive tool for decisionmaking and fostering stronger connections between conservation efforts and local impacts.