Water quality improvements in our nation have been made possible by using a watershed-based approach to water resource management. Watershed management addresses natural resource issues based in geologic boundaries, as opposed to political boundaries. It integrates concerns about water quantity and coordinates insights from the natural and social sciences. A successful watershed approach includes the support, participation and leadership of local stakeholders and land users. Their decisions and lifestyles profoundly impact the watersheds within which they live. In recent years, governments, non-profit organizations, businesses and private citizens have used a watershed approach to refocus their efforts to protect and restore the nation’s waters with widespread positive results.
Despite the benefits of watershed management, more than half of the nation’s major watersheds have water quality and aquatic-habitat-related problems. These impairments are both localized “point-sources” and more widespread “non-point sources” (NPS) of pollution. Long-term improvements and maintenance of clean waters can only be achieved through the comprehensive management of point and NPS pollution sources. Targeting the obvious PS culprits, such as large industrial complexes and waste-water treatment plants, will lead to improvements but, by itself, cannot lead to adequate, sustained water quality improvements. Existing programs and regulations have already greatly improved the techniques for industrial, commercial and residential consumption and release of water in order to return clean water back to the resource from which it came, although these improvements most often come at significant, yet necessary cost. These existing programs and regulations will continue to be critical for the continuation of improvement for WQ into the future.
