Developing Practical Guidelines for Watershed Improvement

Proceedings of the 1999 Georgia Water Resources Conference, March 30 and 31, Athens, Georgia.Although information on best management practices (BMPs) for stormwater and watershed protection abounds, there is far less information on practical methods for setting performance guidelines for the combination of BMPs in any watershed protection plan. Furthermore the typical yardstick for measuring the health of streams, water quality standards, do not provide useful information for measuring practical watershed conditions. In Gwinnett County, a combination of biological (benthos and fish), habitat, and water quality information is being used in an integrated manner to provide a rational basis for setting watershed improvement guidelines. These guidelines, based on statistical correlations between the parameters and professional judgement, allow utilities, governments, and stakeholders to make pragmatic decisions about what is achievable and desirable in their streams. This paper describes the development of watershed improvement guidelines in Gwinnett County as part of the county-wide watershed assessment and modeling project.Sponsored and Organized by: U.S. Geological Survey, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, The University of Georgia, Georgia State University, Georgia Institute of TechnologyThis book was published by the Institute of Ecology, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-2202 with partial funding provided by the U.S. Department of Interior, geological Survey, through the Georgia Water Research Insttitute as authorized by the Water Research Institutes Authorization Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-397). The views and statements advanced in this publication are solely those of the authors and do not represent official views or policies of the University of Georgia or the U.S. Geological Survey or the conference sponsors