ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES(ES)

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Lesson 25: Water conservation

Some key steps in watershed management

1. Comprehensive watershed plans should first identify the characteristics for the watershed and inventory the watershed’s natural resources. It is important to establish a baseline of the overall nature and quality of the watershed in order to plan property for the improvement of the resources in the watershed and to actually measure those improvements.
   
2. The first steps in watershed management planning are to: delineate and map the watershed’s boundaries and the smaller drainage basins within the watershed:
   
3. Inventory and map the resources in the watershed;
   
4. Inventory and map the natural and manmade drainage systems in the watershed;
   
5. Inventory and map land use and land cover;
   
6. Inventory and map soils;
   
7. Identify areas of erosion, including stream banks and construction sites:
   
8. Identify the quality of water resources in the watershed as a baseline; and
   
9. Inventory and map pollution sources, both point sources (such as industrial discharge pipes) and nonpoint sources (such as municipal storm water systems, falling septic systems, illicit discharges).