Q&A
What is a watershed?
A watershed is an area of land that drains water, sediment and dissolved materials to a common receiving body or outlet. The term is not restricted to surface water runoff and includes interactions with subsurface water. Watersheds vary from the largest river basins to just acres or less in size. In urban watershed management, a watershed is seen as all the  land which contributes runoff to a particular water body; all the land that serves as a drainage for a specific stream or river. Imagine a maple leaf. The stalk of the leaf is the river. The veins threading into the stalk are the tributaries flowing into the river. The complete leaf represents a river drainage system, or watershed.
Source: U.S.D.A. Natural Resource Conservation Service
Why do a watershed assessment?
San Clemente Creek.
Photo: San Diego Earthworks |
Increasingly, water resource professionals are turning to watershed management as a means for achieving greater results from their programs. Why? Because managing water resource programs on a watershed basis makes good sense -- environmentally, financially, and socially.
Better Environmental Results
Because watersheds are defined by natural hydrology, they represent the most logical basis for managing water resources. The resource becomes the focal point, and managers are able to gain a more complete understanding of overall conditions in an area and the stressors which affect those conditions.
Traditionally, water quality improvements have focused on specific sources of pollution, such as sewage discharges, or specific water resources, such as a river segment or wetland. While this approach may be successful in addressing specific problems, it often fails to address the more subtle and chronic problems that contribute to a watershed's decline.
After the rain in Rose Canyon.
Photo: Margaret Fillius, Friends of Rose Canyon |
For example, pollution from a sewage treatment plant might be reduced significantly after a new technology is installed, and yet the local river may still suffer if other factors in the watershed, such as habitat destruction or polluted runoff, go unaddressed. Watershed management can offer a stronger foundation for uncovering the many stressors that affect a watershed. The result is management better equipped to determine what actions are needed to protect or restore the resource.
Saving Time and Money Besides the environmental pay-off, watershed approaches can have the added benefit of saving time and money. Whether the task is monitoring, modeling, issuing permits, or reporting, a watershed framework offers many opportunities to simplify and streamline the workload. For example, synchronizing monitoring schedules so that all monitoring within a given area (i.e., a watershed) occurs within the same time frame can eliminate duplicative trips and greatly reduce travel costs.
Efficiency is also increased once all agencies with natural resource responsibilities begin to work together to improve conditions in a watershed.
Enjoying the beach at the mouth of Rose Creek. Tourism is a leading contributor to San Diego’s economic growth.
Photo: San Diego Earthworks |
In its truest sense, watershed protection engages all partners within a watershed, including Federal, State, Tribal and local agencies. By coordinating their efforts, these agencies can complement and reinforce each others' activities, avoid duplication, and leverage resources to achieve greater results.
Data collection is one activity that is particularly ripe for greater cooperation and coordination. For example, a State can reduce its own monitoring costs by factoring in the monitoring activities of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Resource Conservation Service.
In addition, permittees and other stakeholders that generate ambient monitoring data can form basin monitoring consortiums to pool resources and provide the State with greater consistency in collecting and reporting data.
Greater Public Support
Watershed protection can also lead to greater awareness and support from the public. Once individuals become aware of and interested in their watershed, they often become more involved in decision-making as well as hands-on protection and restoration efforts. Through such involvement, watershed approaches build a sense of community, help reduce conflicts, increase commitment to the actions necessary to meet environmental goals, and ultimately, improve the likelihood of success for environmental programs.
Amtrak train in Rose Canyon. Thousands of people travel through the Rose Creek Watershed on a daily basis.
Photo: San Diego Earthworks
Our thanks to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S.D.A. Natural Resource Conservation Service for their help with the information in this section.
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