Watershed Central
Encyclopedia
Watershed Central is an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website developed to organize information and tools relevant to watershed management from across the country.
Watershed Central allows local watershed managers and the public find tools to assess and manage watersheds
across the United States
. The wiki component of the website helps to provide a feedback channel to the developers of watershed tools and datasets, identify gaps in the current toolsets available, and allow local-to-local manager exchange and collaboration over lessons learned. The intention at inception was to present decision support tools, models, data, and other resources in a coordinated, integrated manner for watershed management.
plan, and secondly, to create an environment that would foster the exchange of lessons learned and best management practices across the nation. The Watershed Central website and wiki were designed to embody this vision.
is the area of land that provides water to a stream, river, reservoir, lake, or estuary. John Wesley Powell
, scientist
geographer
, put it best when he said that a watershed is:
"That area of land, a bounded hydrologic system, within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common water course and where, as humans settled, simple logic demanded that they become part of a community."
Watersheds come in all shapes and sizes. They cross county, state, and national boundaries. In the continental US, there are 2,110 watersheds; including Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico, there are 2,267 watersheds.
Watershed Central allows local watershed managers and the public find tools to assess and manage watersheds
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
across the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The wiki component of the website helps to provide a feedback channel to the developers of watershed tools and datasets, identify gaps in the current toolsets available, and allow local-to-local manager exchange and collaboration over lessons learned. The intention at inception was to present decision support tools, models, data, and other resources in a coordinated, integrated manner for watershed management.
History
Officially unveiled in 2009, Watershed Central was developed by a multidisciplinary team within the EPA in response to an apparent gap in terms of a one-stop shop for watershed tools and data. Over 100 people across state, local, federal, and tribal governments contributed to an online vision for Watershed Central. A key element of the vision was to help managers discover the correct tools to use to support the various steps of developing a watershed managementWatershed management
Watershed management is the study of the relevant characteristics of a watershed aimed at the sustainable distribution of its resources and the process of creating and implementing plans, programs, and projects to sustain and enhance watershed functions that affect the plant, animal, and human...
plan, and secondly, to create an environment that would foster the exchange of lessons learned and best management practices across the nation. The Watershed Central website and wiki were designed to embody this vision.
Uses
- Provides an integrated water quality assessment and management context for EPA’s watershed tools and science to expedite remediation of American waters.
- Provides a mechanism to document analyses, decisions, and watershed plan effectiveness.
- Builds capacity of local watershed organizations to develop and implement comprehensive watershed management programs to protect and restore water resources.
- Provides a means for improving the consistency and compatibility of various data elements provided by public agencies across the country.
- Supports decreased time-frames for development of scientifically credible and defensible watershed plans.
- Informs the Agency and collaborative agencies regarding research gaps and impact of products.
- Integrates good science with regulatory drivers and social and economic incentives.
- Leverages knowledge and capability across Federal, State, local agencies, tribes, etc.
Watershed Central Wiki
Watershed Central includes an interactive wiki, where users can submit content, provide feedback, ask questions, discover resources provided by wiki members and discuss relevant watershed issues. The wiki is a central location on the web for sharing watershed information and management tools.What is a Watershed?
A watershed or drainage basinDrainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
is the area of land that provides water to a stream, river, reservoir, lake, or estuary. John Wesley Powell
John Wesley Powell
John Wesley Powell was a U.S. soldier, geologist, explorer of the American West, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions...
, scientist
Scientist
A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
geographer
Geographer
A geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...
, put it best when he said that a watershed is:
"That area of land, a bounded hydrologic system, within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common water course and where, as humans settled, simple logic demanded that they become part of a community."
Watersheds come in all shapes and sizes. They cross county, state, and national boundaries. In the continental US, there are 2,110 watersheds; including Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico, there are 2,267 watersheds.
See also
- Storm Water Management ModelStorm Water Management ModelThe United States Environmental Protection Agency Storm Water Management Model is a dynamic rainfall-runoff-subsurface runoff simulation model used for single-event to long-term simulation of the surface/subsurface hydrology quantity and quality from primarily urban/suburban areas...
- Clean Water Protection ActClean Water Protection ActThe Clean Water Protection Act is a bill introduced in the 111th United States Congress via the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure...
- Clean Water ActClean Water ActThe Clean Water Act is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Commonly abbreviated as the CWA, the act established the goals of eliminating releases of high amounts of toxic substances into water, eliminating additional water pollution by 1985, and ensuring that...
Further reading
- US EPA (2009-07-22)."What is a Watershed?" Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved 2009-08-20.
- http://www.epa.gov/watershedcentral