Bois d'Arc Lake via drone. Photo courtesy of David Cowan, North Texas Municipal Water District.
Every person on Earth lives in a watershed, whether they realize it or not. A watershed is the land area that drains into a stream, river or eventually the ocean.
And what happens across that land directly impacts the water quality in the water body that it surrounds. When water quality in a watershed becomes impaired, one effective approach is the development of a watershed protection plan (WPP).
TWRI offers an overview of WPPs, exploring their purpose, development process and implementation.
What is a Watershed Protection Plan?
A WPP is a comprehensive plan that addresses pollutant loading in a watershed. It is community-driven, non-regulatory and completely voluntary.
WPPs contain locally agreeable approaches to address existing or potential water quality impairments. Recommendations in a WPP are developed through a partnership with stakeholders who live in or use the watershed. All management measures developed in the plan are non-binding.
Who contributes to a WPP?
Stakeholders are individuals connected to the watershed through their residence, employment or recreational use and are impacted by water quality improvement efforts.
In Texas, common contributors to WPPs are county leaders, extension agents, landowners, agricultural producers, conservation organization leaders and water providers.
What is the development process of a WPP?
A WPP usually takes about three years to develop, given the many phases involved in bringing the plan to completion. These include building partnerships with local residents, characterizing the watershed by collecting available information, finalizing goals and identifying solutions, designing an implementation program, implementing the watershed plan as well as measuring progress and making adjustments. The development process is only the beginning of what is often a 10-year project timeline.
What are the specific components of a WPP?
Although all watersheds are different, most WPPs have many topics in common. These include characterizing the watershed, assessing current water quality data, developing load estimates from differing potential pollutant sources and describing management measures to improve water quality.
Additionally, a description of needed educational and outreach activities, a summary of available resources and funding sources, and measures of success to guide progress towards water quality goals are also included in the plan.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also provides guidance on the nine essential elements of a WPP.
What are the goals of a WPP?
The intended result of a WPP is the long-term restoration and protection of water quality, which leads to the de-listing of an impaired water body from the State of Texas 303(d) List of impaired waterways. Some additional desirable outcomes include the restoration and protection of a valuable water resource, funding for implementation activities, an increased aesthetic value and an increased economic value.
How is a water body determined to be impaired?
To be included on the State of Texas 303(d) List of impaired waterways, a water body must show evidence of impairment based on at least seven years of data in most cases. Accordingly, WPPs are typically developed using seven or more years of intensive, quarterly data. The more data a WPP includes, the easier it becomes to demonstrate the need for a watershed management plan and gain stakeholder support, ultimately restoring the impaired water body.
Why is developing a WPP beneficial for communities?
Once a WPP is accepted by the EPA, it is generally leveraged by stakeholders to seek funding assistance to help implement management measures discussed in the plan.
If a community has a completed WPP, this makes it easier to get state and federal funding for projects that can help improve local water quality. Additionally, defining the natural watershed landscape boundaries allows for more accurate identification of potential pollution sources.
How is a WPP implemented?
Implementing a WPP is a multi-year process that requires active participation from stakeholders and local entities for a planned 10-year period. WPP implementation focuses on management measures and education and outreach programs, which depend on the issues recognized in the watershed characterization chapter of the WPP. Management measures outline specific objectives and goals to address the identified issues. Based on these measures, an implementation schedule is created, specifying how the issues will be managed over a 10-year timeline in terms of budget, personnel and resources.
How does a WPP measure success?
Within the 10-year implementation timeline, milestones are used to break down management measures. For example, if there is a specific management measure that requires extensive outreach and education, incremental goals, such as the number of workshops or trainings held, are defined for each period. These milestones serve as checkpoints to assess whether the WPP is progressing as planned, helping to determine the project's success throughout the course of the timeline. The ultimate measure of success is to restore and protect water quality for the impaired water body.
What's an example of a successful WPP in Texas?
In 2006, the North Fork Rocky Creek, a tributary of the Lampasas River, was listed as impaired for dissolved oxygen on the 303(d) list. This meant that there was too little oxygen in the creek for a healthy aquatic community to thrive. In 2009, the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board (TSSWCB) partnered with Texas A&M AgriLife Research to develop a WPP for the Lampasas River watershed. Throughout the development process, stakeholders learned about their local water quality issues and established management strategies.
As part of the WPP, TSSWCB, Texas Water Resources Institute (TWRI), AgriLife Research and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service hosted several outreach and education programs in the watershed. These programs covered various topics such as feral hog management, septic system maintenance, riparian area protection and more. Between 2013 and 2022, over 1,200 people attended these educational events, learning how to implement best management practices to improve water quality, which contributed to the creek’s eventual removal from the list of impaired waters for dissolved oxygen.
How can water professionals get trained in WPP development?
TWRI is a leader in developing and implementing WPPs in Texas and has trained hundreds of water professionals in how to help improve local water quality with WPPs. Professionals can attend Texas Watershed Planning Program training courses and events to learn WPP-related skills, network with other water professionals and learn from WPP case studies. Learn more at texaswpp.twri.tamu.edu.
Learn more about WPPs:
- What is a watershed protection plan?
- Watershed Protection Plans for Nonpoint Source Water Pollution
- TCEQ Nonpoint Source Program
- TSSWCB Nonpoint Source Management Program
- EPA Nonpoint (NPS) Source Pollution
Read through WPPs published at TWRI:
- Middle Yegua Creek Watershed Protection Plan
- La Nana Bayou Watershed Protection Plan
- Bois d'Arc Lake Watershed Protection Plan
- San Fernando and Petronilla Creeks Watershed Protection Plan
- Big Elm Creek Watershed Protection Plan
- Mission and Aransas Rivers Watershed Protection Plan
- Carancahua Bay Watershed Protection Plan
- Mid and Lower Cibolo Creek Watershed Protection Plan
- Lavaca River Watershed Protection Plan
- Update to the Arroyo Colorado Watershed Protection Plan
- Tres Palacios Creek Watershed Protection Plan
- Navasota River Below Lake Limestone Watershed Protection Plan
- Attoyac Bayou Watershed Protection Plan
