Innovations in Watershed Management

The area of Watershed Management is constantly changing as new information becomes available through innovation, analysis, monitoring and modeling.

• Animal Waste Strategy
  • Across Wisconsin, farmers face the challenge of making a living from the land, while protecting our natural resources through environmentally-sound farming practices. Rising equipment costs, decreasing product prices, urban sprawl, and tighter environmental regulations all must be balanced for a farm to be successful.
• Discovery Farms [exit DNR]
  • Discovery Farms are real working Wisconsin farms in different geographic areas, facing different environmental challenges. The Discovery Farms program takes a real-world approach to finding the most economical solutions to overcoming the challenges environmental regulations place on farmers.
• Biomass Energy Production
  • Anaerobic Digestion Information Resources [exit DNR] - The MREC and the WI DATCP -- Department of Ag., Trade and Consumer Projection -- Wisconsin Biogas Development Group have assembled a list of current resources on the topic of anaerobic digestion.
  • Methane Gas Recovery [exit DNR] - Using methane to generate electricity can lower energy costs. Anaerobic digestion systems are also a way to handle the increased pressure on livestock operations to control odors. And such a system can improve manure handling, reducing ground and surface water contamination and controlling harmful pathogens.
• Storm Water: An Environmental Problem for Auto Recyclers and Scrap and Waste Recyclers
  • Storm water is one of the largest sources of surface water contamination in urban and rural areas. When storm water encounters materials such as oils, gas, heavy metals, solvents, at recycling facilities, it can become significantly contaminated. This contaminated storm water leads to surface and ground water contamination.
• Model Ordinances from the USEPA [exit DNR]

• Many communities across the nation are facing challenges associated with natural resource degradation due to rapid growth and development. Local governments need to have legal authorities in place to shape development and to protect resources. This web site helps local governments by providing the necessary information needed to develop effective resource protection ordinances.
• Conservation Reserve and Enhancement Program (CREP) [exit DNR]
  • Opportunity for Wisconsin landowners to enroll agricultural lands into various practices. Practices include riparian buffers, wetland restoration and establishment of native grassland areas, among others.
• Low Impact Development [exit DNR]
  • The Low Impact Development Center was established to develop and provide information to individuals and organizations dedicated to protecting the environment and our water resources through proper site design techniques that replicate pre-existing hydrologic site conditions.
• Great Lakes Water Management Initiative [exit DNR]
  • ... "there has been significant progress in restoring and improving the health of the ecosystem of the Great Lakes Basin. However, the Waters and Water-Dependent Natural Resources of the Basin remain at risk of damage from pollution, environmental disruptions, and unsustainable water resource management practices which may individually and cumulatively alter the hydrology of the Great Lakes ecosystem."
• EPA's Watershed Academy [exit DNR]
  • This Web site offers a variety of self-paced training modules that represent a basic and broad introduction to the watershed management field.
• Watershed Modeling (USGS) [exit DNR]
• The interdisciplinary nature and increasing complexity of environmental and water-resource problems require the use of modeling approaches that can incorporate knowledge from a broad range of scientific disciplines. Selection of a model to address these problems is difficult given the large number of available models and the potentially wide range of applications, data constraints, and spatial and temporal scales of application.
  
  
• EPA's Watershed Tools [exit DNR]
  • This Watershed Tools Directory describes several hundred methods, models, data sources and other approaches that States and communities can use in managing watersheds to improve or maintain water quality for human health and ecological purposes.