Zeyuan Qiu
New Jersey Institute of Technology

A watershed is a hydrologic representation of landscape in which water, sediment and dissolved materials drain to a common outlet such as a point on a stream, a lake, an underlying aquifer, an estuary, or an ocean. Watershed management is a process of engaging relevant stakeholders with broad interest in watersheds, building the consensus on watershed status and management goals, developing and implementing management measures to improve water quality and restore ecological conditions in watersheds. This presentation consists of three interrelated sections. The first section briefly discusses the process of watershed management in the context of the U.S. Clean Water Act. The process includes assigning designated uses to water bodies, developing water quality criteria for each of the designated uses, assessing water quality status according to the criteria, and developing and implementing watershed restoration plan for improving water quality and achieving the designated uses. Sciences and technologies used in watershed management process will be emphasized. The second section will introduce a watershed restoration plan developed to restore watershed hydrology and water quality in the Neshanic River watershed located in New Jersey, USA. The Neshanic River is one of the most polluted headwater streams in the region with impaired aquatic life and nonpoint source pollution from bacteria, phosphorus and total suspended solids. The plan suggests necessary management measures to achieve the required reduction in pathogens and attain water quality standards for total phosphorus and total suspended solids. Management measures would cost $14.6 million and would be implemented over a 10-year period. The third section discusses the implications of watershed management process in the U.S. to managing watersheds in China. Given the rapid economic growth and rampant land use changes in the past 30 years, environmental and ecological conditions in many parts of China are declining. Watershed management should be among the practical approaches to restore ecological conditions and achieve long-term economic growth by accounting the heterogeneous economic and natural resource conditions across different regions in China.