Watershed Planning
Watershed planning is an approach to protecting and managing water quality and quantity within a specific drainage area or watershed. A watershed assessment is developed to describe current conditions, functions of resources and the desired future condition. This information provides a foundation for the development of a watershed plan that can recommend activities needed to progress from the current to the desired future conditions. The watershed planning process follows a series of steps to characterize existing conditions, identify and prioritize problems, define management objectives, develop improvement or maintenance strategies, and implement those strategies. The outcomes of this planning process are documented in a watershed plan.

Watershed planning is a beneficial tool for a variety of organizations and agencies including:

• Local government agencies advancing their commitments to water quality protection, floodplain management, and public education;
• Non-profit organizations interested in prioritizing their efforts to protect and improve the water quality conditions in their region; and
• State and regulatory agencies implementing projects based on in-lieu mitigation fee payments for impacts.

The development of a watershed plan addresses water quality and or quantity concerns in a holistic manner; working within geographic boundaries rather than simply political ones. The plan provides a means to ensure environmental protection, to support quality of life issues, and to accommodate economic development using the watershed as the planning framework. Planning allows a single action to be placed into the context of a larger vision—watershed management planning allows for that vision to include healthy natural resources and waterways.

The steps of watershed planning are standard:

• Create an inventory of the watershed;
• Define the problems;
• Set goals and develop solutions;
• Create an Action Plan;
• Implement and evaluate.

Each step of the planning process can be tailored to account for a variety of landscape, political and funding conditions.

Download Watershed Planning Information Sheet (pdf, ~5 megs)