Stakeholder Engagement in Watershed Management through Extension Activities

Stakeholder Engagement

Programs through CSREES and the Land Grant System are engaging stakeholders in watershed issues. As a result of this involvement, better watershed management decisions are being made and water quality is improving.

Extension activities pertaining to "Stakeholder Engagement" can be broken into the following categories (linked further down this page):
Watershed Initiatives
TMDL Training and Assistance
General Stakeholder Education

Watershed Initiatives
Programs through CSREES and the Land Grant System are actively involved in watershed initiatives throughout the nation. These programs are developing strategies for establishing watershed councils and giving stakeholders a voice in decision making processes and a responsibility in the management of watershed resources.

Accomplishments:
University of Missouri University of Missouri Extension developed a strategy to establish a locally led pro-active watershed group in a watershed where state agency public input sessions had once been extremely confrontational with as many as 400 participants. The group, now formally named the Jacks Fork Watershed Committee, has established ongoing dialogue with agency representatives and developed a list of priority activities.

Recognized as a model for watershed innovation, the Massachusetts Watershed Initiative (MWI) , with University of Massachusetts Extension, developed strategies to raise watershed awareness, promotes community involvement in resource protection, and enhances the capacity at the local level to understand and address watershed issues.

University of Wisconsin Extension Basin Education Initiative designs and delivers educational programs, assists organizations, and builds partnerships to promote understanding and stewardship of Wisconsin’s natural resources at the watershed and landscape scale.

Extension plays a key role in the Lower Mississippi Valley Initiative consisting of a variety of federal, state, and private organizations from eight states. This grass-roots effort to address water quality and a variety of other issues affecting agriculture and forestry in the region. These leaders developed an action plan for locally-led environmental stewardship that is cost-effective, non-regulatory, incentive-based, and sensitive to the economic needs of agricultural producers.

The CSREES Pacific Northwest Regional Water Quality Program has conducted several projects to help their region’s watershed groups build their capacity. They designed and provided support for a watershed leadership institute where watershed leaders were brought together to learn technical aspects of watershed management in addition to becoming skilled in the interpersonal and political forces that can make or break a watershed planning process. Outcomes included activities in Washington to develop a center for consensus and public policy. This regional group also presented a satellite and videostream program throughout their region on “Improving Community Involvement in Watershed Restoration”.

The Missouri Watershed Initiative (Kurtz 2004) integrates issue-directed inter-disciplinary research, outreach/extension, local level decision makers, and local communities so answers can be developed for water quality problems regarding watershed land use and management. University of Missouri Extension fosters a locally-led holistic watershed management approach (Tharp 2004).

Iowa State University Extension has facilitated the formation of citizens watershed councils and provided community development, education and technical assistance in targeted watersheds, such as the Maquoketa River Watershed . Participatory learning has empowered cooperators and their neighbors to set their own nutrient goals for the watershed (Miller 2004).

TMDL Training and Assistance
A water body that does not meet its designated use is defined as “impaired” and added to a list of impaired waters, also known as the 303(d) List. Each state is required to develop Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), the maximum amount of a specific pollutant a water body can accommodate without causing the water body to become unable to serve its beneficial use, for all water bodies on its 303(d) List. Programs through CSREES and the Land Grant System offer training and assistance to states in the completion of TMDLs.

Accomplishments:
More than 200 people attended the CSREES Pacific Northwest Regional Water Quality Program’s 2003 conference on TMDL implementation in watershed restoration bringing together researchers, regulators, practitioners, and educators.

The Virginia Tech Center for TMDL and Watershed Studies houses a database of TMDLs written by the Center (Benham 2004). Technical assistance and support includes TMDL development and implementation support, data management and analysis, modeling, water quality monitoring network design, and facilitating stakeholder participation. The Center created TMDL development procedures that have been adopted as good practice standards in Virginia.

Kansas State University Extension developed and delivered a statewide and county-based TMDLs communications plan – approximately 10,000 citizens were directly reached and educated using meetings, fairs, and other educational events. Watershed modeling was done to assist local decision makers (Devlin 2004).

The Georgia Conservancy and the University of Georgia Institute of Ecology formed a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for sediment TMDLs in Georgia (Radcliffe 2003). TAG developed a white paper which discusses background scientific issues and presents a series of recommendations.

General Stakeholder Education
Education on watershed and water quality issues empowers stakeholders to take action at the local level to make improvements. Numerous programs through CSREES and the Land Grant System – for instance, volunteer water quality monitoring programs, Project WET, Watershed Stewards, and professional development courses – target stakeholders in their educational programs.

Project WET logo Project WET
Project WET (Water Education for Teachers) is an international, interdisciplinary, water education program for formal and nonformal educators and students ages 5 to 18, as well as a basis for adult learning. The Project WET manual was developed and field tested by over 600 educators and resources managers working with more than 34,000 students nationwide. Several Project WET programs engage Extension professionals and CSREES funding.
Accomplishments:
University of Arizona Cooperative Extension coordinates Arizona Project WET which has grown steadily over the last five years to a network of 40 facilitators. To meet the current water education demand in Arizona, state coordinators have begun a strategic planning process. As a result of their efforts, children are learning about and getting excited about water quality. For instance, one student said, “This was the best day of my life!” when referring to the Annual Arizona Project WET Water Festival.

Washington State University Cooperative Extension received 406 funding for the WET Project for Ferry County and the East Half of the Colville Reservation . Since 1999, WET Staff and volunteers have conducted over 200 programs with over 4,000 youth participants.

Other Examples (not a comprehensive listing!):
Utah State University Cooperative Extension Project WET
Project WET—Marion County, Purdue University
University of Wisconsin Extension Project WET

Master Watershed Stewards
Master Watershed Stewards are highly trained volunteers to improve the health of their watersheds. To be certified, Stewards participate in 25-40 hours of course work and training to learn the basics of watershed science. Once certified, stewards draw on their training and resource materials as they volunteer in various ways to improve their watersheds.
Accomplishments:
University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s Watershed Stewards Program documented that their program significantly improved program participants’ knowledge levels over non-participants through quantitative and qualitative measures (Jemison et al. 2004 ). Stewards scored significantly (23%) higher on the objective test than those that had not been involved in the program. Program participants qualitatively demonstrated much more involvement with lake governance, implementation efforts, and related activities.

University of Arizona Cooperative Extension’s Master Watershed Stewards have served in leadership positions on a number of local stakeholder groups resulting in more educated decision making.

Washington State University Cooperative Extension Watershed Stewards work on habitat restoration projects all over Clark County which improves stream structure, reduces water temperature, and adds habitat for all phases of the fish life cycle.

One project by Oregon State University Master Watershed Stewards was to collect water quality and aquatic habitat data for a watershed assessment in Baker County. The project demonstrated the value of and need for local bio-monitoring, while giving the community a more complete understanding of the Oregon Plan water quality assessment protocols.

The Ohio State University Extension's Master Watershed Stewards program received national honors (the USDA Natural Resources and Environmental Management National Flagship Recognition Award ) in 1998.

Professional Development Courses
Extension also offers other courses, web courses, academies, demonstrations, and field days to help educate community members about watershed and water quality issues.
General Watershed Education:
The Ohio Watershed Academy is a professional development course offered by Ohio State University Extension. It is designed to develop the knowledge and skills of current and future watershed group leaders in Ohio to facilitate the development of community-based watershed action plans.

Michigan State University offers a series of web-based courses on watershed management .

The CSREES Southern Region offered a Watershed Academy in 2004 where participants learn watershed basics, strategies of watershed planning and outreach, and watershed management solutions.

Building Community Leadership:
The University of Missouri Extension Program offers a Community Development Academy – Building Communities from the Grassroots. Through this Academy, participants are introduced to basic community development concepts and models. This intensively experiential course established a basic understanding of the professional values, ethics, and practical skills for use in involving and empowering local citizens and leaders to be effective in community development work.

The Kansas Environmental Leadership Program (KELP) is a new approach to community leadership training. KELP offers an exciting combination of activities about leadership studies and research on water quality. The result is an experience in leadership that will prepare graduates to be catalysts for water quality protection.

The intent of this page is not to catalogue all activities but rather to indicate the types of Extension activities in the Watershed Management theme across the U.S.