Prepared by Anna L. Haines, Ph.D.

A watershed is simply the land that water flows across or through on its way to a common stream, river, or lake. A watershed can be very large (e.g., draining thousands of square miles to a major river or lake or the ocean), or very small, such as a 20-acre watershed that drains to a pond. A small watershed that nests inside (see Figure 1) of a larger watershed is sometimes referred to as a subwatershed (see Figure 2).

Importantly, no matter where we live or work, we are in a watershed teeming with unique, inter-related natural processes. These natural forces help shape the watershed landscape, its water quality, and--in turn--our lives.

Once we better understand these processes, we can better appreciate how the watershed's ecological processes help sustain life. For example, a healthy watershed provides:

There are other benefits including:

Understanding these processes, also means understanding how most human activities in the watershed can occur in harmony with natural processes. Communities located along streams and rivers, for example, are faced with basic choices: they can learn how the river functions and learn to draw benefits from it while staying out of harm's way -- or, they can try to significantly change the river's behavior in order to accomplish their plans. It may be feasible to change the way a river acts, but this usually means taking on costly and never-ending maintenance

of those man-made changes; and, despite all the maintenance, communities still may remain vulnerable to floods and other disasters. In contrast, a community that has made sensible decisions on activities near the river can avoid a costly maintenance burden while sustaining their community's use and enjoyment of a healthy river system. In which type of community would you rather live and pay taxes?

Why is it important to know about these human activities and where they occur in the watershed? Human forces interact with natural forces to directly shape the condition of the land and water, and subsequently, can negatively impact our quality of life. For example,

• increasing impervious surfaces in urban areas leads to increased water and contaminant runoff (see Tracker Volume for articles on imperviousness);
• removing vegetation along drainage areas and increased stormflows lead to erosion of soils which can change the landscape to more arid conditions;
• increasing the velocity of the water and contaminants it contains can be lethal to living things; or
• it can create health hazards, reducing our quality of life.

Planning is often much more variable than most people might expect. In practice, it may not follow logical, consistent steps, or necessarily result in a published plan.

A classic paper from the planning literature is The Science of "Muddling Through" by Charles Lindblom (Public Admin. Review, 1959). In this paper the author points out that despite common guidance to make decisions methodically, the decision process in reality seldom follows a set pattern. This remains true today: multiple viewpoints come into play in planning and executing any action. Perhaps the best way to view modern-day watershed planning, and most other types of community planning, is not as a cookbook with consistent recipes for success, but as a very flexible framework for hearing, evaluating, integrating, and building support from numerous viewpoints and proposals. The planning framework has a logical structure and steps, but its flexibility may be more important than taking every step literally and in sequence. Thus, the principles that guide a watershed planning approach are much the same as those that guide a comprehensive planning approach.

Keep in mind that what appears to be the orderly progression of steps may not be quite so neat when the process is actually carried out. Be careful not to jump to conclusions about solutions before information is completely analyzed. However, it may be difficult to persuade planning committee members to delay addressing their goals and their proposed solutions early in the process. Maintain as much flexibility as possible, consistent with working out solutions carefully. The planning committee may even take on part of the problems (perhaps the easier part) on a first time through the planning process, reserving some more difficult problems for a second round after the committee has had some success, comfort and confidence. 

Comprehensive planning and a watershed approach

Advice for watershed planning often concerns assembling a group of stakeholders or concerned individuals, agencies and organizations. Wisconsin communities have the opportunity as they move forward with multi-jurisdictional efforts to establish watersheds as their organizing unit, because watersheds do not adhere to governmental boundaries.

A comprehensive plan identifies broad goals and objectives, describes a range of community issues, which can include watershed issues, outlines specific alternatives for addressing those issues, and documents where, how and by whom these action alternatives will be evaluated, selected and implemented. Including watershed issues within a comprehensive plan may be both desirable and useful. If the community values the lakes, rivers, and streams (and groundwater) in its midst, not only as an amenity, but as an essential component of that community, addressing watershed issues would add a dimension to a comprehensive plan that otherwise would be missing. A key aspect of including a watershed approach into a comprehensive planning process is to include all the watersheds within a community�s boundaries into the process. More than likely no single jurisdiction, especially a town, village, or city will fully encompass an entire watershed within their boundaries. It is likely that several watersheds will cross a single jurisdiction�s boundaries.

Within a comprehensive plan, at least four elements are appropriate �chapters� within which to include watershed issues: 1) agricultural, cultural and natural resources, 2) land use, 3) intergovernmental cooperation, and 4) implementation.

The agricultural, cultural and natural resources element
It is appropriate to examine watershed issues within this element. Here is where (and perhaps when in the planning process) information is displayed about the watersheds within a community. Here are a few points that EPA has outlined:

• Obtain consensus on the most important water resource goals in the watershed.
• Select the most appropriate combination of watershed protection tools to apply to individual sub-watersheds.
• Devise an ongoing management structure to adopt and implement the watershed plan.

The land use element
Within this element, the plan addresses current and future land uses. Under a watershed approach, land uses are critical factors affecting water quality and quantity. The key indicator to examine is impervious cover. Since impervious cover has such a strong influence on watershed quality, a watershed manager must critically analyze the degree and location of future development (and impervious cover) that is expected in a watershed. The land use element is a critical place to consider watershed protection. The land use element could:

• Predict the impacts of future land use change on water resources.
• Develop a future land use plan that can help meet selected community goals.
• Select the most acceptable and effective land use planning techniques to reduce or shift future impervious cover.

Land use planning is best conducted at the sub-watershed scale, where it is recognized that stream quality is related to land use and impervious cover. One of the goals of land use planning under a watershed approach is to shift development toward sub-watersheds that can support a particular type of land use and/or density. The basic goal under the land use element then is to apply land use planning techniques to redirect development, preserve sensitive areas, and maintain, or limit the impervious cover within a given watershed.

Intergovernmental cooperation
One could argue that intergovernmental cooperation is the most critical of the elements when undertaking a watershed approach. Local governments working together to restore and protect watersheds is necessary. Without some level of cooperation and agreement about land use goals and techniques, only limited progress can be made towards restoring and preserving watersheds. In Wisconsin this means several towns that encompass a watershed could work together on not only a plan, but on its implementation. This town level cooperation implies county and probably state agency cooperation, especially at the implementation stage. Past watershed planning and management experience demonstrates that without a fairly high level of cooperation between and among various governmental jurisdictions (both horizontal (town to town) and vertical (town to county)), success is limited.

Implementation
The implementation element is where a plan begins to move towards action. Ideally, the implementation element can provide various departments of local governments, state agencies, community organizations and others with direction and guidance for at least the initial steps to move from plan to action, and a way to monitor if specific actions are getting accomplished.

Many State agencies prepare plans to guide their activities into the future. The Department of Natural Resources prepares watershed management plans for basins it has identified (see www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/gmu/ for DNR�s approach and for status and copies of basin plans). The State of Wisconsin supports the efforts of communities to produce comprehensive plans through its planning grant program; and has encouraged communities to prepare a plan through its comprehensive planning law. However, this law does not encourage planning at a watershed level. At the local level, most communities are not planning with the watersheds that cross their boundaries. One exception is in Washburn County where three towns (see Figure 3) , Birchwood, Long Lake, and Madge, within the Long Lake watershed have been attempting to use a watershed approach as each town prepares its comprehensive plan. They are scheduled to complete their plans in 2004. To keep abreast of the situation see the Long Lake Preservation Association website (www.longlakellpa.org/h2o_planning/h2o_planning_index.html) .

Figures 4 and 5 (pages 10 and 11, respectively) can be used to assist a community with deciding whether or not to move forward in using a watershed approach to comprehensive planning. Figure 4 shows groundwater susceptibility. As the colors on the map move from green to red, the groundwater becomes more susceptible to pollution. Figure 5 shows the number of lakes by county.

Here are some benefits others have found who have used the watershed approach:

• It provides a context for integration
  • using practical, tangible management units that people understand
  • focusing and coordinating efforts
  • finding common ground and meeting multiple needs
• It provides a better understanding and appreciation of nature
  • understanding nature's interrelated processes
  • helping answer the question, "What are we trying to protect?"
  • linking human activities to nature's response
  • appreciating how nature's processes can benefit people
  • identifying ways we can work with watershed processes
• It yields better management
  • generating ecologically-based, innovative, cost-effective solutions
  • forging stronger working relationships among governmental units, businesses, residents, etc.
  • supporting consistent, continuous management across governmental boundaries or jurisdictions.

 

Center for Watershed Protection. 1998. Rapid watershed planning handbook: a comprehensive guide for managing urbanizing watersheds. Ellicott, Md. : Center for Watershed Protection. http://www.cwp.org/

Barham, Elizabeth. 2001. Ecological Boundaries as Community Boundaries: The Politics of Watersheds. Society & Natural Resources, Vol. 14, No.3.

Moore, Elizabeth A.; Koontz, Tomas M. 2003. Research Note A Typology of Collaborative Watershed Groups: Citizen-Based, Agency-Based, and Mixed Partnerships. Society & Natural Resources, Vol. 16, No.5, p451.

Webler, Thomas; Tuler, Seth; Shockey, Ingrid; Stern, Paul; Beattie, Robert. 2003. Participation by Local Governmental Officials in Watershed Management Planning. Society & Natural Resources, Vol. 16, No.2, p.105.

EPA Watershed Academy.

www.epa.gov/watertrain/watershedmgt/index.html

EPA. Top Ten Lessons Learned. www.epa.gov/owow/lessons/

Wisconsin DNR Watershed webpage. www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/gmu/ 

Long Lake Preservation Association.

www.longlakellpa.org/h2o_planning/h2o_planning_index.html