Characteristics
Water
All life depends on water for survival. Two goals of watershed protection efforts in Napa County are: protecting water quality and protecting water quantity. more description...
Weather
The Napa Valley has a Mediterranean climate characterized by warm, dry summers and cold, moist winters. The majority of annual precipitation occurs as rain that falls during the winter and early spring. more description...
Wildlife
Napa County’s watersheds not only provide a home to over 133,000 people, they also support abundant wildlife, several of which hold the unique status of rare, threatened, or endangered. more description...
Fish
The Napa River watershed supports an assemblage of 30 native fish species, including several threatened and/or rare species such as steelhead/rainbow trout, fall-run Chinook salmon, Pacific and river lamprey, hardhead, hitch, tule perch, and Sacramento splittail. more description...
Plants
Napa County's numerous and diverse plant communities can readily be seen on a drive up the valley. more description...
Urban environment
In Napa County, urban and built-up areas make up over 21,000 acres. While built-up areas in Napa County only make up about 4% of the landscape, their effect on the health of the watershed is significant. more description...
Soils and geology
Napa County is part of the hilly to steep mountains of the California Coast Range. The county is characterized by a number of northwesterly parallel mountain ridges and intervening valleys of varying widths. more description...
Grazing land
Grazing land acreage in the County has declined from about 200,000 acres in 1960 to approximately 95,000 in 2003. Despite the decline, livestock grazing still remains the largest agricultural land use, in terms of acreage, in the Napa County’s watersheds. more description...