Integrated Watershed Management
The Sustainable Path to the Future
In the 40 years since the enactment of the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts, dramatic progress has been made in improving the quality of U.S. surface waters and drinking water. Before these regulations, roughly two-thirds of the surface waters were not attaining basic water quality goals and were considered polluted. The clean-up, however, is far from over. The EPA reports that one or more designated uses are impaired in:
- 39 percent of rivers and streams
- 46 percent of lakes
- 51 percent of estuaries
Furthermore, approximately 15% of our surface waters do not support their drinking water use designation and numerous areas of the country have difficulty balancing the conflicting drinking water withdrawal needs with the ecological water needs. Addressing these remaining water challenges in an affordable manner over the coming decades will require that we move beyond the traditional regulatory "silo” approach of managing the multitude of water issues independently and adopt an integrated watershed management approach.
Water is needed in all aspects of our lives. To ensure ongoing sustainability of this essential resource, a more holistic, integrated strategy needs to be adopted. The ideal strategy interconnects environment, economy, and society. Taking an integrated approach is the best way to ensure that adequate supplies of good quality water are maintained for the entire population, while preserving the ecosystems and adapting human activities within the capacity limits of nature – all for the best value. Sustainable development strategies should be based on a comprehensive approach to water management. As an example, a town is considering a new water supply well adjacent to a local stream, which will reduce stream flow. A secondary consequence will be more stringent discharge standards for the town’s wastewater facility which discharges downstream. By considering the secondary consequence up front, a more sustainable solution can be found.
Integrated watershed management is a continuous and evolving process by which decisions are made for the sustainable use, development, restoration and protection of ecosystem features, functions and linkages. IWM enables addressing multiple issues and objectives within a very complex and uncertain environment. A successful IWM requires the integration of scientific components with multiple stakeholder and agency responsibilities. It requires a big picture understanding of exactly what is going on in our watersheds and what has to be done to ensure a sustainable future. IWM links human behavior and environmental impact. By planning within this context, we can ensure healthy, safe environments that provide a good quality of life in the most cost-effective manner.
The underlying principle behind the IWM process is Adaptive Environmental Management. This is the continuous and cyclical process of carrying out a plan that addresses identified issues and concerns, which is then implemented, monitored, reported on, and updated as required in order to adapt to changing or new stressors.
Historically, this multitude of water issues has been managed in an independent, non-integrated approach. Continuing in this fashion to address the remaining water challenges will result in solutions that are unnecessarily costly and ultimately less effective. That said, there are many barriers to IWM as follows:
- Lack of public awareness of the importance of water and the impacts of land uses.
- Fragmented regulations with competing and uncoordinated objectives.
- Multiple political entities within a watershed with no formal mechanism to facilitate cooperation and coordination.
- Multiple stakeholders with no mechanism for collaboration and coordinated decision making.
- Lack of an entity with the authority to drive change at the watershed level
Insufficient staff and resources available to the stakeholders to produce watershed plans.
- Lack of readily available scientific information on which to base comprehensive watershed plans.
- Insufficient social and economic science linkages to promote sustainability.
- Funding limitations.
- Fluctuating public and political support for work whose outcomes are long term.
Solutions to these challenges will involve a mix of education, new public policy, stakeholder involvement/decision making and scientific studies. Water supply, wastewater disposal, stormwater management, habitat and recreational needs, and land use policy are interconnected and should be looked at holistically on a watershed basis to identify the most effective and sustainable solutions.
Wright-Pierce provides our clients with the combined expertise of civil, water, wastewater, stormwater and water quality engineers, as well as hydrogeologists and environmental scientists. We are also experienced with planning, economic analysis, public education and public participation processes. We help our clients develop holistic integrated solutions to today’s complex water issues.