New Strategies for America's Watersheds (1999) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
9 Conclusions and Recommendations
9 Conclusions and Recommendations
Pages 269-280
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This chapter summarizes the committee's analysis of how to improve the nation's implementation of watershed management, including some important general principles that place watershed management in a broad context, comments on reauthorization of the Clean Water Act, and recommendations for various agencies and others involved in watershed-related activities. SUCCESSFUL WATERSHED MANAGEMENT It is not possible, or necessarily desirable, to restore the nation's waters and watersheds to completely natural conditions to provide healthful water resources.
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discussed several general objectives that can be managed within a watershed context which can help the nation achieve more normative watershed conditions: Reduce pollution sources by developing watershed water quality standards, such as using the concept of total maximum daily loads to control nonpoint source pollutants. Federal, state, and local laws provide water quality standards that safeguard drinking water, but they do not necessarily protect ecosystems or watershed integrity.
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REAUTHORIZATION OF THE CLEAN WATER ACT Implementation of the 1972 Clean Water Act (CWA) has had profound impacts on state and federal regulatory programs related to water quality and on
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of the Clean Water Act, states must identify pollution-impaired streams and develop plans to reduce pollutant loads. This approach relies on setting total maximum daily loads (TMDLs)
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Management of waters and closely related resources requires understanding that the human dimension, including economic and social processes, are components of the overall system that should be accounted for in research, planning, and management. There is considerable support for making a watershed approach a critical aspect of the Clean Water Act, as evidenced, for instance, by many policies and guidance documents already in place under the Environmental Protection Agency, such as the Administration's recent Clean Water Action Plan (1998~.
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5. Scientific and technical peer review of watershed improvement activities conducted by qualified independent professionals can provide objective evaluations of their impact.
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More research is needed to provide the data, knowledge, and technology necessary to support effective watershed management, especially work focused on integrating social, economic, and ecological elements. There is a special need for research and monitoring that is long-term and integrated across scales and timeframes, as well as for specific problem-solving research and theory and model development One specific step to greatly improve scientific understanding of watersheds is for Congress to increase funding for the National Science Foundation in areas that can improve understanding of the human dimensions of watersheds.
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inexpensive, useful indicators of watershed conditions and quantitative methods to evaluate land use and watershed management practices; . advanced watershed simulation models (especially models that link natural and social attributes)
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, as the organization charged with primary responsibility for establishing the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) , should assume a leadership role in establishing a capability for collecting spatial data on watersheds by creating national data standards, designating a central clearinghouse, and maintaining a single national watershed database.
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A decision support system (DSS) is a suite of computer programs with components consisting of databases, simulation models, decision models, and user interfaces that assist a decisionmaker in evaluating the economic and environmental impacts of competing watershed management alternatives.
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· State governments are best positioned to facilitate coordination, research, and technical assistance; to ensure application of standards and water use regulations; to conduct evaluation of projects; and in some cases to provide financial support to local governments, either with their own funds or funds dispensed to states by the federal government. The federal government and its agencies are best positioned to take primary responsibility for watershed management affecting the interstate scale, as well as for supporting research, providing technical assistance, and providing financial support to state and local entities.
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1994. Reauthorization of the Clean Water Act: important issues for water quality scientists.
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