What Watershed Management
Watershed management is aimed at land and water resources, and is applied to an area of land that drains to a defined location along a stream or river. Watershed management aims to care for natural resources in a way that supports human needs for water, food, fiber, energy, and habitation, while supporting other agreed attributes linked to recreation, esthetics, and/or ecologic function. Because of these multidisciplinary concerns, the development of watershed-management strategies can involve complex scientific and public policy issues. Each watershed is unique in physiography, ecology, climate, water quality, land use, and human culture.
Therefore any generalized approach to watershed management must be customized to each setting when put into practice. Watershed management requires a long-term commitment that is adaptive to changes in population, climate, culture, and resource-use demands. These issues are unique to each watershed and each nation. Watershed-management experiences from around the globe have dealt with a wide range of issues.
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The Important Benefits Of Watershed Management
Every body of water, from rivers to ponds, has a watershed. That is the area of land that sheds water, or drains, into a specific receiving water body, typically another lake or river. Watershed management refers to the process of implementing land use and water practices that protect the quality of the water and natural resources within a watershed. Know these important benefits of watershed management, and you’ll realize just how necessary this practice is to the health of the environment and of the Earth’s human population.
Reduces Pollution
Watershed pollution can come from natural or manmade sources. Runoff from rainwater or snowmelt is the primary natural contributor of this pollution. The runoff picks up pollutants and brings them into the receiving lake and river. Watershed management can work to identify what kinds of pollutants are present and track how they entered the watershed.
Human sources of pollution are many. Any activities that take place within a watershed will affect the natural resources within it. This can include new land development, gardening and lawn care, agricultural activities, and septic system use and maintenance. As the aging sewer system in American spills about 1.26 trillion gallons of untreated sewage every year, civil engineering management systems for watersheds help to mitigate that damage.
Promotes Partnerships Amongst Affected Parties
In any management systems for watersheds, all parties that are associated with that watershed need to be involved. This type of partnership is crucial to successfully manage the area’s natural resources. Without effective collaboration between affected parties, not everyone will be on the same page about the types of pollution they need to prevent and how they are going to do that. When an upstream municipality takes harmful actions, it will impact the downstream municipality’s land as much as their own.
Contributes To Economic Health
A healthy watershed means a healthier city. As a watershed encompasses the forests and wetlands surrounding it, maintaining its health can help reduce or prevent costly climate change and flooding impacts and manage drought. A healthy watershed can also give a financial boost to the industries of tourism, agriculture, forestry, and mining. When there is water infrastructure for dams included in a watershed, its good health can also ensure energy production and water supply for agriculture, industry purposes, and households.
Conclusion And Way Forward
When you properly manage a watershed, you’re guaranteeing the safety and health of every living thing in the area. While this process can be complicated, it is vital to ensuring an excellent quality of life for any population. World Water Day 2018, devoted to “Nature-based solutions for water”, reminds us that we can reduce floods, droughts and water pollution by using the solutions we already find in nature.11 IFAD is striving to do just this, and in addition IFAD is seeking to protect the livelihoods of the millions of smallholders who depend on
fresh water. Given its ambition to be “bigger, better and smarter” (IFAD, 2016a), IFAD is focusing on how to scale up its water-related investments as part of the drive to deliver on Agenda 2030 and IFAD’s related goal of inclusive and sustainable rural development. One way forward is to step up IFAD’s engagement in policy dialogue on water issues at the international, regional and national levels, building on
successful local changes in water governance to shape policies on food security and water resources management. IFAD has also placed great emphasis on knowledge management as a foundation for scaling up. For example, a grant to the CGIAR (the CGIAR Challenge Programme on Water and Food) has led to a series of “outcome stories”, all of which have scale potential.
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