Community-Based Watershed Management: Lessons from the National Estuary Program (NEP)

This book is designed for individuals and organisations involved in watershed management, including states, tribes, local governments, and non-governmental organisations. This handbook describes approaches to watershed management implemented by the 28 National Estuary Programs (NEPs) in the United States. The NEPs are community-based watershed management organisations that restore and protect coastal watersheds. Readers will learn how the NEPs organise and maintain effective citizen involvement efforts, collect and analyse data, assess and prioritise problems, develop and implement management plans, and communicate results of programme activities. According to the book, while estuaries and their coastal watersheds are the focus of the NEPs, the estuary programme experience can also be adapted to non-coastal watershed initiatives.

• Chapter 1 discusses the origin of the NEP and presents the four cornerstones or principles of the NEP: (1) focus on the watershed; (2) integrate science into the decision-making process; (3) foster collaborative problem solving; and (4) include the public.
• Chapter 2 explains how the NEPs develop a governance structure and support the work of stakeholder committees.
• Chapter 3 describes how each NEP assesses an estuary to determine its health and the effectiveness of existing management efforts.
• Chapter 4 explains how the NEPs use the results of the Technical Characterization and Base Program Analysis to develop management plans that address the problems of the estuary.
• Chapter 5 describes how the NEPs maintain the momentum of their watershed programs as they shift from planning to implementation.
• Chapter 6 summarises the key principles that run throughout this approach to watershed management and highlights how they are applied to achieve success.