New EPA Website Gathers Resources on Watershed Health

The Healthy Watersheds website aggregates information for making strategic decisions to protect and restore rivers, streams, lakes and wetlands from a wide variety of sources in the public and private sectors.

Assessment and management strategies that encourage states, local governments and watershed organizations to take ecosystem approach to watershed conservation are featured on the new site. The initiative aims to conserve healthy components of watersheds, avoiding future water quality impairments.

State officials will benefit from the Healthy Watersheds initiative since they operate at the scale needed to implement strategic conservation decisions and are well-suited for assessing and managing watershed resources, the EPA said in a statement announcing the new site. Local governments, watershed practitioners, and regional agencies also are expected to utilize the resources offered under this initiative.

Waterfalls in Keeny's Creek West Virginia (Photo courtesy Forest Wander)

The Healthy Watersheds Initiative is needed, says the EPA, because of the deteriorating condition of the nation's waters.

A national water quality survey of wadeable streams conducted by the EPA in 2006 showed that 42 percent of the nation's stream length was in poor biological condition and 25 percent was in fair biological condition.

Over the past 50 years, coastal and freshwater wetlands have declined, surface water and groundwater withdrawals have increased by 46 percent, and non-native fish have established themselves in many watersheds according to a Heinz Center study published in 2008.

And in another 2008 study, scientists found nearly 40 percent of fish in North American freshwater streams, rivers, and lakes to be vulnerable, threatened, or endangered - nearly twice as many as were included on the imperiled list from a similar survey conducted in 1989.

Many tools to address these issues are found in one place on the Healthy Watersheds site. The section on conservation approaches, for instance, opens the door to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s ecosystem approach to developing infrastructure projects; the Planner’s Guide to Wetland Buffers for Local Governments, complied by the Environmental Law Institute; and all of the 50 state Wildlife Action Plans, to name just three of dozens of links.

A watershed assessment section of the site centers on the EPA Science Advisory Board's “Framework for Assessing and Reporting on Ecological Condition.” An integrated assessment framework can range from screening-level GIS assessments to sophisticated ecological modeling and statistical analyses of ecological attributes.

The EPA says the healthy watersheds approach addresses the watershed "as a system of biota and habitats that are driven by critical processes such as hydrology, fluvial geomorphology, and natural disturbance regimes."

Programs that protect and restore aquatic ecosystems are most effective when they recognize and integrate these dynamics and manage watersheds as systems, the agency says.

While significant progress has been made in protecting and restoring water quality under the Clean Water Act, the nation continues to lose healthy aquatic ecosystems. Preserving healthy watersheds will provide the critical natural infrastructure needed to restore water quality.

EPA's new initiative is predicated on the idea that it is more cost-effective to protect the benefits provided by healthy watersheds than it is to restore them once they become impaired.

Changing behavior through education and developing responsible attitudes among watershed citizens and communities is an essential component of the healthy watersheds concept. One section of the new website provides outreach tools such as the EPA’s Nonpoint Source Outreach Toolbox, which contains information and resources for watershed campaigns including: guides; ready-made logos, slogans, and mascots; surveys and evaluations; and TV, radio, and print ads.

Federal, state and local outreach links are listed in this section, which includes such resources as the National Watershed Library and the Watershed Academy Web. Through the Academy, the EPA offers a variety of self-paced training modules that represent a basic broad introduction to the watershed management field. Courses include Top Ten Watershed Lessons Learned, Introduction to the Clean Water Act and Wetland Functions.

Listed as a resource, the River Network offers methods that watershed managers can use to involve people in aquatic resource management such as guidebooks, trainings, and networking opportunities.

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