Watershed Research in the U.S. Geological Survey (1997) / Chapter Skim
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WATERSHED RESEARCH FOR WATER MANAGEMENT
WATERSHED RESEARCH FOR WATER MANAGEMENT
Pages 8-19
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From page 8... ...
Many private-sector endeavors also are clependent upon knowledge gained from watershed research, including privately owned water supply and electric power utilities, forest products companies, and other manufacturing industries. The information neecis of those users are many, and an appreciation for the nature of watershed activities undertaken by those organizations is important to USGS as it pursues its research endeavors.
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From page 9... ...
Devastating floods in the Upper Mississippi Basin in 1 993 were di rectly responsible for the loss of 38 lives and fiscal damage estimated to be in the range of $12 billion to $16 billion (Administration Floodplain Management Task Force, 1994~. In the 1980s, average annual flood damages were approximately $4 billion in 1985 dollars (Federal Interagency Floodplain Management Task Force, 1992~.
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late 1 940s, however, a substantial lobby had developed for structural measures in upland areas, and that pressure culminated in the passage of the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act of 1954, also known as P.L.
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Experience from some of the better state programs was i Incorporated i nto gu idance by the Federal Water Pol I ution Control Administration, encouraging states to use watersheds and river basins as spatial units for development of implementation plans required by amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act in 1965. With these developments, research needs were expanded to focus added attention on the fate and transport of pollutants in streams.
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From page 12... ...
Inclusion of nonpoint sources, widely distributed over the landscape and transported by stormwater runoff, increased the importance of watershed processes in pollution control strategies. Section 208 of the act established areawide planning to embrace all municipal, industrial, and nonpoint sources of pollution in watersheds, particularly in metropolitan areas and other regions where point source controls alone were insufficient to satisfy water quality standards.
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Watershed Research for Water Management 13
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Urban Stormwater Among the earliest nuisances of urbanization that confronted local governments were problems of flooding, traffic disruption, and other adverse effects of excessive runoff from storm events. Many communities responded by developing watershed-wide stormwater management plans.
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Watershec/ Research for Water Management 15
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Added attention was drawn to water supply watersheds when EPA adopted its Surface Water Treatment Rule in June 1989, using its authority under amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1986. That rule, which developed over several years after much public debate, places a number of restrictions on systems that do not use filtration to treat waters taken from surface sources, including several large systems such as those serving New York, Boston, and Seattle.
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The Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies has argued for a national program of comprehensive watershed management. I n 1 991 the EPA developed a "watershed protection approach" for its water quality management programs.
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Plans for the state's 17 river basins are scheduled to be updated on a staggered five-year cycle, and all discharge permits within each basin are to be reissued when plans are revised. IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH Several elements of watershed management have emerged as being especially important and difficult as priorities have been established on nonpoint sources, pathogenic organisms, hazardous substances, wetlands protection, and ecosystem restoration.
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grimed Research far tier Cement 79 ecosystem-based management achieving that goal is far more difficult Responses of ecosystems to management practices have been notoriously difficult to predict at the level of certainty oRen demanded in policymaking processes/ many of which are being directed at causes rooted in land use and land management practiced Improvements in knowledge about watershed processes should lead to beue[] n~rmed policies regarding land management.
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