10 Years of Regional Progress: Watershed Management

Community-based watershed management is an approach to water resource protection that allows individuals, groups, and institutions to work with each other to identify and address local issues that affect their watershed. The PNW Region’s land grant universities are active in research and directly assisting communities in their watershed management efforts through partnerships with federal and state agencies, involvement with planning councils, and developing educational materials. Research and science-based educational materials and programs cover land-use management, conservation techniques, and water management model programs. The PNW Water Program has made addressing water quality and quantity at the watershed scale a priority. Over the past decade the program has reached tens of thousands of people in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The program has accomplished this through training hundreds of other professionals on water issues, developing internet accessible video programs, developing key publications targeting specific water issues, sponsoring bi-annual conferences reaching over 1000 water resource professionals with leading edge water research, knowledge, and outreach techniques, as well as a host of other activities to lead to changes on the ground. One key strategy has been to train other professionals that provide outreach and education so that they can incorporate water issues into their program efforts. These training opportunities have included 2 3-day water quality monitoring programs, a two day training on the use of GIS mapping strategies to identify and educate about water issues, a series of 3 daylong workshops on salmon habitat protection and restoration techniques, use of integrated pest management to protect water quality, and a two day program on public outreach techniques that lead to more widespread adoption of practices that protect water resources.