Watershed Managers' Lessons Learned at the 2002 World Watershed Summit

The technical part is easier and faster than the human part.

• Political challenges are greater than scientific/technical challenges.

Education is the single most important and effective "management practice."

• The command and control approach is important but secondary. Complementary collaborative strategies are needed.

• Perception is everything — If the resource is not aesthetically pleasing, people won't believe it's worth saving.
• More aggressive demand for conservation measures should be incorporated into society.
• Youth respond better to youth vs. adult —led workshops; they are easily motivated and often more willing to protect waters than parents.
• Keep lessons entertaining. Humor helps, as do hands-on activities.

Keep it small, Keep it confidential, Keep it moving, Keep it flexible and Keep it local

• Watershed protection is a long-term endeavor.

• You can’t steer a parked car - Delivering tiny successes while planning the big one helps to keep the public committed.
• Adaptive management is helpful to guide the frequently necessary corrections. Water quality forecasting/modeling often is not reliable enough to provide a scientific basis.
• Pilot projects are useful.

Watershed plans must be the property of the local community.

• The "Three Rs" are key: Respect, Recognition, and Reward

• The watershed protection process is more a "bottom up" than a "top down" approach.
• Governments have to provide leadership but not ownership.
• It is tough sledding without a good local coordinator.
• Organization and long-term support are key to maintaining energy and interest. Assessment establishes synergy.
• One-on-one technical assistance is important.

Water is a shared resource -- all sectors need to be engaged.

• Effective efforts are collaborative and comprehend the entire array of affected agencies, interests, concerns, issues, and opportunities (multi-functionally).

• Scientists and resource managers need to frequently interact.
• Integration of staffing and programs helps to better manage resources.
• Success is based, in large measure, on the information revolution.

Watershed management is primarily about land use management

• Land use decision makers are a chronically underserved audience.

• There are simple methodologies for determining prior
  

  ities.

• Land conservation nonprofits and public land managers can be effective partners.
• Land conservation helps mitigate water quality challenges.
• The tools exist to minimize imperviousness.

Resources are limited, thus we are wise to clearly identify goals and endpoints, correctly diagnose impaired waters, and compare benefits and risks of alternatives.

• States may need to thoughtfully and rigorously reconsider their water quality standards.

• Legally based objectives and requirements facilitate planning and practice. Methodology should be standardized.
• Instream habitat is relatively ignored in risk assessment.
• An experimental approach is required to determine cause-effect relationships: continuous simulation modeling can generate realistic alternative scenarios.
• Well-designed monitoring programs and statistical hypothesis testing are important.
• Adequate monitoring and assessment and refined WQS can simultaneously support multiple water quality management program needs and objectives
• State monitoring, assessment, and water quality standards must be sufficiently adequate and refined to support watershed-based management. They must be at the same spatial scale.
• Sophisticated statistics are needed to understand the relative importance of some factors.
• Models must be well calibrated — error and bias must be evaluated.

New tools offering flexibility and incentives are needed to achieve CWA goals.

• Tools are lacking to comprehensively address interrelated watershed issues

• Successful models are needed to fit local circumstances.
• Water quality trading is a flexible market-based tool with growing acceptance and use; other market-based approaches are also needed for ecosystem management.

Significant improvement will require management of many nonpoint and diffuse urban contributions as well as physical alterations to the landscape.

• Surface water, groundwater, and the interaction between them are important. Geology, soils, climate, hydrology and other factors are important determinants of water conditions.
• Urban watersheds tend to show a unique signature:
  • As watersheds are developed, biological communities degrade; Physical factors are as (or even more) important than chemical pollution.
  • Downstream of urban discharges show greater impacts than their rural counterparts, despite better wastewater treatment.
• The natural flow regime must be protected or restored to extent possible: both high and low flows are important to system integrity.
  • Stormwater runoff volume is a very big pollutant and the one that is growing the most rapidly. If we cannot manage that, waters will not be fishable or swimmable.
• Monitoring for dry weather combined sewer overflows is a priority and requires a high commitment of resources. Floatables control is not easy or inexpensive.
• Imperviousness is a good indicator of watershed potential

Beware the data loop, but:

• Integration of habitat, chemistry and biology into geographic information systems (GIS) is an essential assessment tool.

• Better data sets are needed to construct predictive models of watersheds.
• Long-term monitoring data is needed to assess effectiveness of management actions.
• High-resolution (spatial and temporal) data is necessary to adequately manage and restore impaired streams.
• Models should drive data collection so that data can be interpreted in the right context.