Treesearch

New computer technologies facilitate the storage, retrieval, and summarization of watershed-based data sets on the World Wide Web. These data sets are used by researchers when testing and validating predictive models, managers when planning and implementing watershed management practices, educators when learning about hydrologic processes, and decisionmakers when selecting the best course of action from a set of alternatives. Data sets from the Beaver Creek watershed in north central Arizona have been incorporated into a Web site to illustrate this application (https://www.fs.usda.gov/rm/bo...

The field of watershed management is highly dependent on spatially distributed data. Over the past decade, significant advances have been made toward the capture, storage, and use of spatial data. Emerging tools and technologies hold great promise for improving the scientific understanding of watershed processes and are already revolutionizing watershed research. Issues of scale, error, and uncertainty are highly relevant to understanding surface processes and are intimately tied to these emerging tools. This paper provides a summary of some of the ways in which global positioning systems,...

Mexico City Metropolitan Zone (MCMZ) is located within the Basin of Mexico. Because of its large population and demand for natural resources, several authors have questioned the viability of the city, especially in terms of water resources. These are reviewed at the regional and the local scales. It is concluded that a multi-basin management approach is necessary to integrate a water management strategy capable to meet near future challenges in water demand by the MCMZ.

Heavy torrential rains during the typhoon season, steep topography, young and weak geologic formations, erodible soils and improper land uses are factors contributing to disasters associated with erosion, landslides, debris flows, and floods in Taiwan. With steady public and government support over the past 5 decades, Taiwan's watershed management program in which soil and water conservation is a dominant component has helped to alleviate impacts of disasters and enhance sustainable management of land and water resources. The program is periodically evaluated and revised according to...

Many historical indications of the eastern Mediterranean Basin exhibit climatic changes or alterations effecting the status of water resources, hence, effecting human-kind and the quality of life. It is essential to deeply understand the nature of climates and geological structures employing state of the art techniques to assess rainfall, runoff, and floods that replenish groundwater in arid regions of the Middle East. The integrated watershed management approach being implemented in the Azraq Basin of eastern Jordan presents a unique opportunity to study the effectiveness of this approach...

India's present food requirements of 220 million tonnes will likely increase to 340 million tonnes in 20 years. Expansion in the agriculture sector to meet these demands can be achieved only by devoting greater attention to restoring watershed lands previously degraded by excessive soil erosion to higher productivity and more efficiently utilizing the country's water resources. This challenge is intimately related to the proper management of land, water, and vegetation resources. Management of water and, more comprehensively, watershed resources is paramount to meeting this challenge....

Three global challenges for watershed researchers in the 21st century are examined in this paper. These challenges are obtaining better assessments of terrain stability; understanding hydrologic responses at different watershed scales; and developing better methods for analyzing and assessing cumulative watershed effects. These topics are only a subset of the pressing issues facing watershed management in the coming century. However, they are important examples in the continuum from contributing processes (landslides), driving mechanisms (hydrologic response), and integrated watershed...

Views of watershed management in the 21st Century are presented in terms of concept, status, progress and future of watershed planning. The watershed as a unit will increasingly be the basis of planning because the concept is widely understood, many state and federal laws require such a focus, and watersheds are a logical entity for monitoring purposes. Impediments to watershed planning remain, but progressive and effective policies are evolving in response to public demand that diverse land uses and users protect the watershed resources. Watershed management will be improved by new...

Watershed management is attracting increased attention, not only among persons involved in natural resource management, but even among those with a less specialized interest in such issues. Watershed management is reviewed as a movement with historical, social and political implications, in the past and the present.

Shared resources are universal resources that are vital for sustaining communities, enhancing our quality of life and preserving ecosystem health. We have a shared responsibility to conserve shared resources and preserve their integrity for future generations. Resource integration is accomplished through ecosystem management, often at a watershed scale. The shared outcome of resource integration is sustainability, which can be measured with the appropriate criteria and indicators. Using a watershed approach to land stewardship, we can identify priority problems, obtain stakeholder involveme...