OVERCOMING TECHNICAL BARRIERS TO MEASURING THE PERFORMANCE OF WATERSHED PROGRAMS

摘要

The Clean Water Act gave nonpoint source pollution programs a flexible, performance-based approach, which is potentially much more economically efficient than less flexible, regulatory programs addressing industrial pollution. There has been considerable success in reducing soil erosion in the United States and increasing the efficiency of fertilizer use by farmers. Nonetheless, states have had difficulty in both setting watershed goals and in demonstrating success. New planning, modeling, and funding tools are now available to address these issues and highlight performance management. With high-speed computers, models can track reductions in pollution from field run-off for thousands of watersheds for what it used to cost to model just one watershed. This article explores how new models and planning breakthroughs, along with a supportive funding focus from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), address these technical barriers to performance management in watersheds facing non-point source pollution challenges.