| Watershed Restoration |
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Watershed Restoration Projects
Comprehensive management of community-wide sustainable land development requires a broad set of activities, including management of small as well as large projects, education of the community at large, and coordination between bureaucracies that are accustomed to acting independently. Principles of ecosystem management argue for a natural scale based on ecological boundaries such as entire watersheds. However, political borders do not respect biology. In the rush to make our cities modern marvels, we've fine-tuned nature out of the design process – ignoring the ecosystem cycles of energy, nutrients, air and water. To build a new awareness of urban communities as ecosystems, we need to re-examine the natural and manmade infrastructure that make up our communities, the ways they interact, and how sustainable land development fits in. Only then can we manage our resources so they can sustain our communities for future generations. Communities across the nation are turning to watershed protection to sustain the valuable ecological services that natural systems provide. Regardless of region, the underlying cause of threats to watershed quality and health is usually the same: watershed development. Current or future watershed development has been implicated as a prime threat to salmon runs in the streams of the Pacific Northwest, coral reefs in the Florida Keys, freshwater mussel diversity in Midwestern streams, endangered salamanders found in Texas springs, shellfish harvesting along our coastlines, sea grass beds in Long Island Sound, and trout streams across the country. Communities have discovered that they must work at the watershed level to solve their diverse natural resource problems. They have also found that no matter what watershed they are working in, the same eight basic management tools are needed to mitigate the impacts of development: watershed planning, land conservation, aquatic buffers, better site design, erosion control, stormwater treatment practices, control of non-stormwater discharges, and watershed stewardship. |
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