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Our Mission
The Santa Barbara Urban Creeks Council (SBUCC) was formed to encourage the preservation, protection, and restoration of natural and urban streams. Our goal is to educate decision makers and the general public on the aesthetic, recreational and ecological values of natural streams located near our homes, places of employment, farms, or in commercial and industrial urban areas. In order to promote these values, SBUCC holds regular meetings, develops educational materials, and hosts workshops and field outings to increase the awareness of the value of our natural streams, for the public as well as for engineering and planning professionals.
Get to Know Your Watershed
A watershed is an area of land in which all water flows or converges to a particular point. For example, all the precipitation and runoff deposited in the Mission Creek Watershed ultimately flows into the Pacific Ocean at a lagoon near East Beach. Along the way, the creek supports plant and animal life and provides ecosystem services to nearby communities.
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SBUCC strives to improve the relationships between people and their watersheds because we each live in one, and we both influence and are influenced by the ecosystem processes within it. The first step in developing that relationship is getting to know the unique features and challenges of your local watershed. If you don't know which watershed you live in, check out our creek map! You can either download it as a PDF map, or explore this interactive Google Maps version.