Take a clean water pledge with the Clear Choices Clean Water program! Clear Choices Clean Water increases awareness about choices we make and the impact they have on our streams and lakes. Individuals, adults and kids, are encouraged to pledge to either start, or continue, good behaviors that make a difference for water quality and for water conservation.
Back To Top. What The Nature Conservancy in Indiana is Doing Throughout the years, The Nature Conservancy in Indiana has done tremendous work to protect and maintain the health of watersheds throughout the state. Conserve water every day. Use hardy plants that require little or no watering, fertilizers or pesticides in your yard. Do not over apply fertilizers. Consider using organic or slow release fertilizers instead. Benefits of Healthy Watersheds Home Media Room Watershed Report Card Benefits of Healthy Watersheds Our natural ecosystems are made up of forests, wetlands, water sources, plants and animals, and provide multiple goods and services that contribute to a healthy economy, environment and people.
Human Health : A healthy watershed provides safe drinking water, provides food, enables us to adapt to the impacts of climate change more easily by cooling the air and absorbing greenhouse gas emissions, and provides natural areas for people to keep active and recharge our batteries. Ecological Health : A healthy watershed conserves water, promotes streamflow, supports sustainable streams, rivers, lakes, and groundwater sources, enables healthy soil for crops and livestock, and also provides habitat for wildlife and plants.
These goods and services are essential to our social, environmental and economic well-being. The wide array of critical ecosystem services provided by healthy watersheds is frequently undervalued when making land use decisions.
Due to the complexity of natural systems and economic precedents, it is difficult to assign a dollar amount to a particular ecosystem service. However, there is a large body of research and evidence to support the fact that intact healthy ecosystems avoid costly restoration and ecosystem service replacement, and provide long-term economic opportunities and jobs.
Nutrient cycling, carbon storage, erosion control, soil formation, increased biodiversity, wildlife corridors, water storage, water filtration, flood controls, timber, and recreation are just a portion of the services provided by ecosystems within watersheds. Forested headwater streams function to filter sediment and pollutants, which directly benefit humans and other animals in the form of clean water. At a larger scale, naturally vegetated floodplains provide storage and slow release of water.
This benefit reduces the risk of flooding for anyone who lives near a river. Stable soils, an absence of pollutants, and a rich biological community are all characteristics of a healthy watershed USEPA, When watersheds are degraded and pollution ensues, ecological benefits and services can be reduced or completely lost.
Within watersheds, much of the water transported from high to low elevations is carried through streams and rivers. Because this water carries sediments and pollutants from the land area it drains, impairments in rivers and streams are indicators of unhealthy watersheds caused by upstream land use.
The U. The National Water Quality Inventory: Report to Congress documented that the leading causes of impairment to rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and reservoirs are pathogens, habitat alterations, and toxins and pollutants in the water.
The main causes for these pollutants include agricultural activities, hydrologic modifications, atmospheric deposition, and other unknown or unspecified sources USEPA, Watershed health has been linked to economic benefits for communities. It is clear that the cost of restoring lost ecosystem function or using an alternative method or technology to provide a specific ecosystem function can be high.
New York City is one example of a community choosing to invest in ecosystem services to reduce capital costs. This case highlights how maintaining and protecting healthy watersheds can reduce capital costs for public services. In addition, watershed health has been linked to mental and physical health benefits. The National Park Service found that people in healthy watersheds are more likely to exercise, because they have easy access to forests, greenways, parks, and trails USEPA, The distribution of healthy watersheds is uneven across biophysical and socioeconomic categories—better health and economic outcomes consistently correlate with access to ecosystem services USEPA, You can help protect your watershed by integrating good management practices at home and in your community.
Simple steps like properly fertilizing your lawn, appropriately disposing of waste, planting more trees, and harvesting rainwater for garden and lawn irrigation have substantial impacts on watershed health.
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