The goals of watershed planning are to:
- Improve water quality,
- Improve habitats
- Protect continued customary uses of biological resources
- Improve watershed resilience, and
- Expand opportunities for community access.
What is a watershed and how does it work?
over most of its range it does. Cold winters provide two major challenges for plants, freezing temperatures can cause cells to rupture and freezing temperatures that lock up water as ice so plants can succumb to dehydration. Plants have a number of ...
Why are watersheds important to protect?
Why Are Watersheds Important? A watershed – the land area that drains to a stream, lake or river – affects the water quality in the water body that it surrounds. … Healthy watersheds provide critical services, such as clean drinking water, productive fisheries, and outdoor recreation, that support our economies, environment and quality of life.
What are facts about a watershed?
‘Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate’ is something we’ve heard way too many times to forget. When you think of hydration, your mind immediately draws a sketch of gushing water. Well, water is one irrefutably important lifeline that keeps us going.
How do watersheds help humans?
With nature being vital to our health, economy and security, and global warming a reality, the mandate of Conservation Authorities remains as relevant now as when it was initially formulated:
- Safeguarding Ontario’s rivers, lakes and streams;
- Protecting, managing and restoring Ontario’s woodlands, wetlands and natural habitats;
- Developing and maintaining programs that will protect life and property from natural hazards suchas flooding and erosion;
How does protecting watersheds help?
What are the services of a watershed?
Why are floodplains important?
Why identify and protect healthy watersheds?
Why is it difficult to assign a dollar amount to an ecosystem service?
How does the outdoor recreation industry contribute to the economy?
How does natural landscape affect water quality?
See more
About this website
Welcome to Open Access Repository of ICRISAT - OAR@ICRISAT
Welcome to Open Access Repository of ICRISAT - OAR@ICRISAT
BENEFITS OF A HEALTHY WATERSHED — Oldman Watershed Council
People have always recognized the importance of water – early settlements were built around sources of freshwater. In this section, we look at some of the main benefits of a healthy watershed and water supply.
Why are Watersheds important? - Watershed Watch | Protect our Creeks ...
The Watershed Watch Campaign is a public education initiative of the Santa Clara Valley Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Program (SCVURPPP), an association of fifteen government agencies in Santa Clara Valley. The Campaign is dedicated to raising awareness about protecting watersheds and preventing storm water pollution. This website provides free resources and easy everyday ways to prevent ...
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Why Watersheds Are Important to Protect
Title: Why Watersheds Are Important to Protect Author: pgruttemeyer Keywords: fact sheets, Watershed, Management, WMB, nhdes, des, was, wasfacsh, watershed, water ...
How does protecting watersheds help?
Protecting healthy watersheds can reduce capital costs for water treatment plants and reduce damages to property and infrastructure due to flooding, thereby avoiding future costs. Additionally, protecting healthy watersheds an generate revenue through property value premiums, recreation and tourism:
What are the services of a watershed?
Healthy watersheds provide many ecosystem services including, but not limited to: nutrient cycling, carbon storage, erosion/sedimentation control, increased biodiversity, soil formation, wildlife movement corridors, water storage, water filtration, flood control, food, timber and recreation, as well as reduced vulnerability to invasive species, the effects of climate change and other natural disasters. These goods and services are essential to our social, environmental and economic well-being.
Why are floodplains important?
Increased resilience in the face of climate change threats. Intact floodplains and riparian areas enable healthy watersheds to be better adapted to more extreme weather patterns and changes in precipitation associated with climate change.
Why identify and protect healthy watersheds?
Why identify and protect healthy watersheds? In many ways, healthy watersheds substantially affect the quality of life for people and the environment overall – often by performing ‘free work’ that communities do not have to do, or pay for, themselves. The beneficial roles of watersheds in healthy condition can be surprisingly far-reaching and include ecosystem services, economic benefits and physical and mental health benefits.
Why is it difficult to assign a dollar amount to an ecosystem service?
Due to the complexity of natural systems and economic precedents, it is difficult to assign a dollar amount to a particular ecosystem service. However, there is a large body of research and evidence to support the fact that intact healthy ecosystems avoid costly restoration and ecosystem service replacement, and provide long-term economic ...
How does the outdoor recreation industry contribute to the economy?
Over 30 million people in the U.S. fish recreationally and these anglers generate approximately 1 million jobs and over $45 billion in retail sales annually (Southwick Associates, 2008). Overall, the outdoor recreation industry contributes $646 billion annually to the economy, supports 6.1 million jobs, and generates $79.6 billion in federal and state tax revenues (Outdoor Industry Association, 2003).
How does natural landscape affect water quality?
Reduced drinking water treatment and infrastructure costs. Natural landscapes filter pollutants and protect water quality. A review of treatment costs and watershed characteristics for 27 drinking water utilities found that for every 10% increase in forest cover of the source water area, chemical and treatment costs decrease by 20% (Ernst, 2004). In a separate case, New York City found it significantly more cost-effective to protect the watershed’s natural land cover and forests to provide natural filtration, rather than installing a multi-billion dollar water treatment facility (Barnes et al., 2009).
What is the watershed area?
It’s a land area that channels rainfall and snowmelt to creeks, streams, and rivers, and eventually to outflow points such as reservoirs, bays, and the ocean. While some watersheds are relatively small, others encompass thousands of square miles and may contain streams, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and underlying groundwater that are hundreds ...
How many square miles are there in a watershed?
Conversely, some watersheds encompass thousands of square miles and may contain streams, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and underlying groundwater that are hundreds of miles inland. The largest watershed in the United States is the Mississippi River Watershed, which drains 1.15 million square miles from all or parts of 31 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces stretching from the Rockies to the Appalachians!
What is the size of a watershed?
A watershed can be small, such as a modest inland lake or a single county.
Why does water run off of buildings?
During periods of heavy rain and snowfall, water may run onto and off of impervious surfaces such as parking lots, roads, buildings, and other structures because it has nowhere else to go. These surfaces act as "fast lanes" that transport the water directly into storm drains.
Where does water infiltrate?
Some water infiltrates much deep er, into underground reservoirs called aquifers. In other areas, where the soil contains a lot of hard clay, very little water may infiltrate. Instead, it quickly runs off to lower ground. Rain and snowmelt from watersheds travel via many routes to the sea.
What is a watershed?
Encyclopedic Entry. Vocabulary. A watershed is an area of land that drains or “sheds” water into a specific waterbody. Every body of water has a watershed. Watersheds drain rainfall and snowmelt into streams and rivers. These smaller bodies of water flow into larger ones, including lakes, bays, and oceans. Gravity helps to guide the path that water ...
What is the largest watershed in the United States?
The Mississippi River watershed is the biggest watershed in the United States, draining more than three million square kilometers (one million square miles) of land. The Mississippi River watershed stretches from the Appalachian Mountains in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west.
How many states are in the Mississippi River watershed?
Thirty-one U.S. states and two Canadian provinces fall within the Mississippi River watershed. Watershed management is a term that describes the use of land, forest, and water resources in ways that do not harm the plants and animals living there.
How does gravity help water?
Gravity helps to guide the path that water takes across the landscape. Not all rain or snow that falls on a watershed flows out in this way. Some seeps into the ground. It goes into underground reservoirs called aquifers.
Which river supplies freshwater to a huge portion of the continental United States?
The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers are the two longest rivers in North America, and together form the backbone of the much larger Mississippi watershed that supplies freshwater to a huge portion of the continental United States. Photograph by Horace Mitchell. conservation. Noun.
What is the meaning of conservation?
conservation. Noun. management of a natural resource to prevent exploitation, destruction, or neglect. watershed. Noun. entire river system or an area drained by a river and its tributaries. watershed management. Noun. use of land, forest, and water resources in ways that do not harm the plants and animals living in a watershed.
Why should watersheds matter?
Now that you know what watersheds are, why should their health matter to you? Watersheds directly affect water quality, whether it's for drinking or recreation. For example, algae blooms from fertilizer runoff draining into water harm watershed health, as do mercury and lead seeping into the water supply due to pollution.
How does one freshwater ecosystem affect another?
According to the EPA paper "Sustaining Healthy Freshwater Ecosystems," one freshwater ecosystem can be greatly affected by another: "Far from being isolated bodies or conduits, freshwater ecosystems are tightly linked to the watersheds or catchments of which each is a part, and they are greatly influenced by human uses or modifications of land as well as water" [source: Environmental Protection Agency ].
What does it mean when you live along a river bank?
If you live along a river bank, this could mean losing your backyard. For wildlife that lives in this area, it means a loss of their habitat. The sharp increase in development around the world may contribute to some of the problems affecting watersheds today.
What happens if water picks up dirt?
If the water picks up enough soil over time, the land along that stream will become unstable and eventually erode away. If you live along a river bank, this could mean losing your backyard.
How does water pollution affect wildlife?
Aquatic life quickly suffers the effects of watershed pollution, while new pollutants introduced into ecosystems alter wildlife habitats. This reduces biodiversity by eliminating some species and introducing new, invasive ones that destroy the native species. That, in turn, can affect the food chain, from microbial organisms that feed birds and animals to fish that feed humans.
What is a watershed?
The Environmental Protection Agency defines a watershed as any body of land that flows downhill into a waterway. Basically, "watershed" is a broad term used to describe how water flows across land to feed streams, rivers and lakes [source: Environmental Protection Agency ].
How are watersheds determined?
Obviously, water cannot travel uphill, so all watersheds are determined by topography. That means if you live on one side of a ridge and your neighbor is on the other side, you live in different watersheds. That also means that watersheds vary greatly in size, depending on the highest points surrounding it.
What happens when a watershed ends?
Anything that ends up in a watershed ends up in a body of water, including pollutants like discarded motor oil or paint, or sediments from trees cut down due to construction. These and other pollutants can contaminate a water supply, erode the land surrounding the body of water and disrupt aquatic habitats.
How many watersheds are there in the world?
There are millions of watersheds in the world - 2,100 small ones in the United States alone [source: NatureServe ]. However, a watershed is more than just a piece of land that collects the rainwater and dumps it into the river.
How big is a watershed?
That also means that watersheds vary greatly in size, depending on the highest points surrounding it. A watershed can be thousands of square miles, or it can be a few acres draining into a pond [source: Environmental Protection Agency ].
What happens to every land mass?
Every land mass eventually feeds into a body of water.
How can we help the watershed?
What You Can do to Help. The EPA offers their tips on how you can help keep your watershed clean and healthy. Conserve water every day. Take shorter showers, fix leaks & turn off the water when not in use. Don’t pour toxic household chemicals down the drain; take them to a hazardous waste center.
Why is it important to protect the quality of our watersheds?
Unfortunately various forms of pollution, including runoff and erosion, can interfere with the health of the watershed. Therefore, it is important to protect the quality of our watersheds.
How do watersheds sustain life?
Watersheds sustain life, in more ways than one. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, more than $450 billion in foods, fiber, manufactured goods and tourism depend on clean, healthy watersheds. That is why proper watershed protection is necessary to you and your community.
What is watershed protection?
Watershed protection is a means of protecting a lake, river, or stream by managing the entire watershed that drains into it. Clean, healthy watersheds depend on an informed public to make the right decisions when it comes to the environment and actions made by the community.
What percentage of the world's water is impaired?
Earth is covered in 70% water and unfortunately 40-50% of our nation's waters are impaired or threatened. "Impaired" means that the water body does not support one or more of its intended uses. This could mean that the water is not suitable to drink, swim in or to consume the fish that was caught there.
Can nutrients cause problems in a watershed?
Although nutrients sound like things that belong in a healthy environment, they can cause big problems in a poorly managed watershed. For instance, sediment can suffocate fish by clogging their gills and the presence of bacteria alone can indicate that other viruses and germs can be found in the water as well.
How does protecting watersheds help?
Protecting healthy watersheds can reduce capital costs for water treatment plants and reduce damages to property and infrastructure due to flooding, thereby avoiding future costs. Additionally, protecting healthy watersheds an generate revenue through property value premiums, recreation and tourism:
What are the services of a watershed?
Healthy watersheds provide many ecosystem services including, but not limited to: nutrient cycling, carbon storage, erosion/sedimentation control, increased biodiversity, soil formation, wildlife movement corridors, water storage, water filtration, flood control, food, timber and recreation, as well as reduced vulnerability to invasive species, the effects of climate change and other natural disasters. These goods and services are essential to our social, environmental and economic well-being.
Why are floodplains important?
Increased resilience in the face of climate change threats. Intact floodplains and riparian areas enable healthy watersheds to be better adapted to more extreme weather patterns and changes in precipitation associated with climate change.
Why identify and protect healthy watersheds?
Why identify and protect healthy watersheds? In many ways, healthy watersheds substantially affect the quality of life for people and the environment overall – often by performing ‘free work’ that communities do not have to do, or pay for, themselves. The beneficial roles of watersheds in healthy condition can be surprisingly far-reaching and include ecosystem services, economic benefits and physical and mental health benefits.
Why is it difficult to assign a dollar amount to an ecosystem service?
Due to the complexity of natural systems and economic precedents, it is difficult to assign a dollar amount to a particular ecosystem service. However, there is a large body of research and evidence to support the fact that intact healthy ecosystems avoid costly restoration and ecosystem service replacement, and provide long-term economic ...
How does the outdoor recreation industry contribute to the economy?
Over 30 million people in the U.S. fish recreationally and these anglers generate approximately 1 million jobs and over $45 billion in retail sales annually (Southwick Associates, 2008). Overall, the outdoor recreation industry contributes $646 billion annually to the economy, supports 6.1 million jobs, and generates $79.6 billion in federal and state tax revenues (Outdoor Industry Association, 2003).
How does natural landscape affect water quality?
Reduced drinking water treatment and infrastructure costs. Natural landscapes filter pollutants and protect water quality. A review of treatment costs and watershed characteristics for 27 drinking water utilities found that for every 10% increase in forest cover of the source water area, chemical and treatment costs decrease by 20% (Ernst, 2004). In a separate case, New York City found it significantly more cost-effective to protect the watershed’s natural land cover and forests to provide natural filtration, rather than installing a multi-billion dollar water treatment facility (Barnes et al., 2009).
Ecosystem Benefits and Services
Economic Benefits
- Protecting healthy watersheds can reduce capital costs for water treatment plants and reduce damages to property and infrastructure due to flooding, thereby avoiding future costs. Additionally, protecting healthy watersheds an generate revenue through property value premiums, recreation and tourism: 1. Reduced drinking water treatment and infrastructure costs…
Physical and Mental Health Benefits
- Lower rates of illness. Workplaces with views of green space have employees who report fewer incidences of illness (Kaplan, 1989). Hospital patients that can experience natural scenery experience s...
- Decreased stress and Improved cognitive development.Students have been shown to have lower stress levels and reduced levels of attention deficit disorder when they are exposed to …
- Lower rates of illness. Workplaces with views of green space have employees who report fewer incidences of illness (Kaplan, 1989). Hospital patients that can experience natural scenery experience s...
- Decreased stress and Improved cognitive development.Students have been shown to have lower stress levels and reduced levels of attention deficit disorder when they are exposed to green spaces (Well...
- Higher likelihood to exercise. People are more likely to exercise if they have easy access to recreation areas like parks, trails, greenways, and forests. People who exercise regularly are generall...
