The Iowa Watershed Approach is a large collaboration of agencies and federal, state, and local public partners, non-profit organizations local governments. It works progressively to challenge the status quo of watershed management through work with land owners, offering technical assistance and cost-sharing for flood mitigation. The impact of this work can be seen downstream from the more than 400 conservation practices that have been installed.

The creation of watershed management authorities is the heart of the Approach. Replication and scalability have been presented to other states and agencies across the nation.