Land and Watershed Management - Practices of Irrigation and On-farm Water Management - page 194

6.6.3 Watershed Planning and Management ................. 229
6.6.4 Tools for Watershed Protection ..................... 230
6.6.5 Land Use Planning .......................... 230
6.6.6 Structural Management ........................ 230
6.6.7 Pond Management .......................... 231
6.6.8 Regulatory Authority ......................... 231
6.6.9 Community-Based Approach to Watershed Management ......... 231
6.6.10 Land Use Planning and Practices .................... 234
6.6.11 Strategies for Sustainable Watershed
Management ............................. 235
6.7 Watershed Restoration and Wetland Management ................ 236
6.7.1 Watershed Restoration ........................ 236
6.7.2 Drinking Water Systems Using Surface Water .............. 236
6.7.3 Wetland Management in a Watershed .................. 237
6.8 Addressing the Climate Change in Watershed Management ........... 238
6.8.1 Groundwater Focus .......................... 238
Relevant Journals ................................ 238
Relevant FAO Papers/Reports ........................... 238
Questions .................................... 239
References ................................... 239
A watershed is the geographic area where all water running off the land drains to
a common outlet. Watershed management activities can be considered at the state,
river basin, individual watershed level or regional scale. For improving watershed
protection and restoration, it is a prerequisite to know how agricultural systems
influence soil and water resources.
For managing watershed effectively, it is necessary to identify and address
land-use practices and other human activities that pollute local water resources
or otherwise alter watershed functions. To develop sustainable programs, land
and water must be managed together and an interdisciplinary approach is needed.
Watershed management recognizes that the water quality of our streams, lakes, and
estuaries results from the interaction of upstream features. It unites social, economic,
and environmental concerns and the cumulative effects of site-specific actions on
rangelands, forests, agricultural lands, and rural communities.
6.1 Concepts and Scale Consideration
We all live in a watershed - the area that drains to a common waterway, such as
a stream, lake, estuary, wetland, aquifer, or even the ocean - and our individual
actions can directly affect it. A watershed is the geographic area where all water
running off the land drains to a given stream, river, lake, wetland, or coastal water.
Simply speaking, a watershed is the area of land where all of the water that is under
it drains off or goes into the same place.
Watershed can also be viewed as that area of land (or a bounded hydrologic
system), within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common