Maintain Healthy Watersheds Goal Implementation Team (GIT 4) Projects and Resources

Maintain Healthy Watersheds GIT works to keep local watersheds healthy across a range of landscapes, bringing attention to the challenge of protecting streams and watersheds that are healthy today and restoring waters if they become degraded.

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Susquehanna River Basin Ecological Flow Management Study

As the single largest freshwater input to the Chesapeake Bay, the Susquehanna River is a key tributary to one of the nation’s most important estuaries. Natural hydrologic variability is a fundamental component of any river system’s ecological health. Aquatic species and natural communities have evolved in concert with naturally variable flows, and the ecological health of a river system depends on an intact hydrologic regime. This study is focused on ecological flow needs, often called environmental flows, and other water resource needs are not explicitly considered.

The Role of Natural Landscape Features in the Fate and Transport of Nutrients and Sediment

In response to a request from the Chesapeake Bay Program’s (CBP) Maintain Healthy Watersheds Goal Implementation Team (GIT4), the CBP’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) sponsored a workshop on March 7-8, 2012 to consider whether there is a scientific basis for changing how the Chesapeake Bay Program Watershed Model assigns nutrient and/or sediment loading rates of natural landscape features based on their ecological health/condition, management status, and/or landscape position.
The workshop agenda included plenary sessions with expert panels on the fate and transport of nutrients and sediments by natural landscape features - forests, riparian buffers, streams, and wetlands – one panel on landscape ecology, and one presentation on how the current Chesapeake Bay Program Watershed Model estimates nutrient and sediment loading rates. Workshop participants then dispersed into breakout groups, one for each landscape feature, to discuss the following questions:

  • What changes could be made to the existing Chesapeake Bay Program Watershed Model to better simulate the functioning of natural landscapes?
  • What functions should be considered in any future modeling effort?
  • What questions need to be addressed by the scientific community before any model or tool can appropriately simulate or account for natural landscape functions?

Cost of Community Services: AFT Report

Cost of Community Services (COCS) studies are a case study approach used to determine the fiscal contribution of existing local land uses. A subset of the much larger field of fiscal analysis, COCS studies have emerged as an inexpensive and reliable tool to measure direct fiscal relationships. Their particular niche is to evaluate working and open lands on equal ground with residential, commercial and industrial land uses. COCS studies are a snapshot in time of costs versus revenues for each type of land use. They do not predict future costs or revenues or the impact of future growth. They do provide a baseline of current information to help local officials and citizens make informed land use and policy decisions.

Identifying and Protecting Healthy Watersheds: Concepts, Assessments, and Management Approaches

This technical document was developed to help implement the Healthy Watersheds Initiative (HWI) by providing EPA and state water quality and aquatic resource scientists and managers with an overview of the key concepts behind the HWI, examples of approaches for assessing components of healthy watersheds, integrated assessment options for identifying healthy watersheds, examples of management approaches, and some assessment tools and sources of data. This document summarizes the many examples from across the country of state, local government, and others efforts to assess, identify, and protect healthy watersheds by understanding their systems context. This document can assist in those efforts and also serve as a resource for other states and their partners interested in conducting healthy watersheds assessments and implementing holistic, systems-based healthy watersheds protection programs.

Conewango Creek Initative's Conservation Toolbox for Municipalities

The Conewago Initiative has put together a toolbox to provide ideas and guidance on how to make improvements to communities surrounding Conewago Creek. The tools are organized by five key goals developed to meet the vision for the Conewago watershed. For each tool, three tiers are provided, each describing various levels of municipal involvement and investement needed. Links to resources, suggestions on posiible partners, and contact information is also provided for each tool.

Cheverly Green Infrastructure Plan

The town of Cheverly Maryland created a Green Infrastructure Plan that helps elected officials, town staff, community organizations, and residents to consider the town's need as a whole. It provides a comprehensive framework for protecting green space, managing water resources, and making land use decisions. The plan is intended as a living document and will enable the town to better meet future challenges and to recognize and take full advantage of opportunities.

Strategic Plan

The following documents describe the Maintain Healthy Watersheds GIT strategic plan through a strategy for 2013, collective activities, the decision framework, and guidance from CBP and the Management Board on adaptive management.