The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has launched Healthy Watersheds, an initiative that emphasizes protection and conservation of aquatic ecosystems. The launch coincides with a new Web site (www.epa.gov/healthywatersheds) that provides information on tools to identify and protect healthy watersheds and their components.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has launched Healthy Watersheds, an initiative that emphasizes protection and conservation of aquatic ecosystems. The launch coincides with a new Web site (www.epa.gov/healthywatersheds) that provides information on tools to identify and protect healthy watersheds and their components.
The site provides critical information for making strategic decisions to protect and restore waters and should prove useful to state officials, who generally operate at the scale needed to implement strategies and are well-suited for assessing and managing watershed resources. Local governments, watershed practitioners, and regional agencies also should benefit from this initiative.
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The Healthy Watersheds Approach addresses the watershed as a system of biota and habitats that are driven by critical processes such as hydrology, fluvial geomorphology, and natural disturbance regimes. Programs that protect and restore aquatic ecosystems are most effective when they recognize and integrate these dynamics and manage watersheds as systems.
