Using Gravity To Redefine Hydrology
Water planners and managers do their best to plan for water usage patterns but there are often many assumptions that have to factor into those plans. Specifically, how will private wells be used, and how will farmers use natural water sources such as streams and rivers adjacent to their land? How robust is the aquifer? What is the recharge rate of that aquifer relative to rainfall patterns? A poor assumption relating to any of these questions can unhinge a well-crafted plan. Now, planners may have a new tool for evaluating water sustainability – satellite imagery.
Lessons From Camden Ohio’s Water Emergency
Most residents of the United States take their overall water security as a given; certainly, some in the desert southwest worry that they will need to make choices between which fields to water and which to abandon but very few worry about where they will get their fresh drinking water. Imagine if that changed. For the residents of one small town in western Ohio, it did change; their town’s water supply became so fouled that it was impossible to supply the residents with drinking water and emergency measures had to be put in place. In this, the first of a three part series, H2Bid will examine this catastrophe and its impact on the town of Camden, Ohio.
Practices & Techniques for Watershed Protection
In a recent H2Bid article, Rivers Under Stress, it was noted that watershed protection and management was critical in reducing river stress and cultivating more sustainable freshwater resources. In a follow-up to that October, 2010, article, today’s piece will shed light on current practices and techniques for watershed protection.
When discussing watershed protection many ideas are voiced, but one theme which runs throughout virtually all conversations is coordination. Without coordinated, organized efforts, the successful practices tend to be localized and have little if any impact in the larger freshwater system. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) are charged at the national level with watershed protection; the US EPA works with the Department of the Interior and numerous state and local agencies to implement a coordinated day-to-day watershed management approach in the United States and the NRCS plans and maintains the long term vision for US watersheds.