Training Course in Watershed Management

1. Introduction

Water and other natural resources on watershed lands play significant roles in satisfying human needs. A watershed can contribute forage for livestock and wildlife species, furnish a diversity of primary wood products, and yield water for municipal, agricultural, and industrial developments. It is urgent, therefore, for all concerned with management of watershed lands to understand the principles and concepts of watershed management and, more importantly, to develop ways of implementing land use practices that are compatible with watershed management principles.

Definitions of some terms are helpful in helping to understanding the roles of watersheds and watershed management in the development of natural resources. A watershed is a topographically delineated area that is drained by a stream system. It is considered to be a hydrologic-response unit, a physical-biological unit, or a socio-economic unit for management planning purposes. A river basin is defined similarly, but it is larger in scale than a watershed. For example, the Colorado River Basin, the Amazon River Basin, and the Congo River Basin comprise all lands that drain through these rivers and their tributaries into the ocean. In common usage, the term watershed refers to a smaller upstream catchment that is part of a river basin.

Watershed management is the process of organizing and guiding land and other resource use on a watershed to provide the desired goods and services without adversely affecting soil and water resources. Embedded in the concept of watershed management is the recognition of the interrelationships among land use, soil, and water, and the linkages between uplands and downstream areas. Watershed management practices are changes in land use and vegetative cover, and other non-structural and structural actions, carried out on a watershed to achieve watershed management objectives.

Training Course: Table of Contents | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7