Additional Resources for Developing a Foundation of Watershed Advocacy Skills

The goal of this blog (and Virginia Tech’s NR 5264 Watershed Stewardship course) was to help me build, develop and document a new understanding and foundation of watershed advocacy skills. 

These are the skills and orientation that I need to be able to quickly develop a stewardship or advocacy strategy if presented with a conservation or resource management challenge.  In other words, a foundation or building block for many other projects that are relevant to a watershed, water, and natural resources management professional. 

The additional goal of this blog is to share what I have learned with you. 

With this in mind, and in addition to the products already documented with earlier blog posts for the Big Laurel Creek - Whitetop Laurel Creek watershed, the additional resources listed below can hopefully be useful to you in the development an advocacy plan for a watershed that is important to you as a  citizen, student, teacher, naturalist or natural resources management professional. 

These resources contain a wealth of valuable knowledge that I hope will be valuable for you.

I have selected resources that are available free, the only requirement is the time needed to watch and review webinars, slides, page of information, etc. 

 

The first recommended resource is the Watershed Academy, an online training in watershed management offered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).


“(The) Watershed Academy is a set of webinars, educational modules and publications that provides an introduction to watershed management. Watershed Academy is free of cost and requires no registration. Explore the website to learn about the Clean Water Act, watershed ecology, best management practices and more.

 

Learning Modules - Access self-paced training modules that represent a basic and broad introduction to watershed management.

 

Webinars - The Watershed Academy provides regularly released live webinars covering a variety of watershed management related topics.

 

Watershed Resources - Explore watershed resources related to watershed protection, data management, the Clean Water Act and more.

 

You can also pursue documentation of your learning by meeting the requirements for the Watershed Academy's Watershed Management Training Certificate Watershed Academy Web and Training Certificate.  - Document your learning by meeting the requirements for the Watershed Academy's Watershed Management Training Certificate.

 

Certificate Program Rule

  • No registration, admission or tuition is necessary; this program is open to everyone worldwide, at any time and is completely internet-based.
  • Trainees must complete a minimum of 15 modules, a minimum of 12 of which must be from the core modules list.
  • We recommend completing all 15 modules from the core modules list, but trainees may substitute alternate choices for up to three core modules in which their training is already sufficient.
  • All core modules have self-tests which trainees must pass with a grade of 70% or higher (retesting is permitted). Copies of self-tests or test grades do not have to be emailed to the Watershed Academy – this is an honor-system-based program.
  • We do not have an arrangement for offering academic credit to all certificate earners, but obtaining academic credit is often possible through individual arrangements with college professors as part of an independent study, undergraduate or graduate program.”

The second resource are two programs from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Watershed Programs and the Conservation Webinar Portal.

For the Conservation Webinar Portal, I’d recommend that you search for the terms that are relevant to the topics that you are interested in, such as “watershed”, “stream”, etc.  

Several webinars that I would personally recommend are... 

     There are many more.  Search the on-demand webinars for topics that interest you.

 

Another resource (the third) that may be of value to you is the Water on the Web site.

“Water on the Web (WOW) helps college and high school students understand and solve real-world environmental problems using advanced technology.

WOW is a complete package containing two sets of curricula, data from many lakes and rivers nationwide, extensive online primers, data interpretation and Geographic Information System Tools, and additional supporting materials.

Basic Science consists of individual lessons for infusion into a wide range of existing science courses. Water Resource Science is a two-semester water resource management curriculum for second year technical students and undergraduates in water or environmental management disciplines.

  • Learn more about aquatic ecology, water quality, watersheds, data collection, and data interpretation in Understanding.
  • See animated data; view maps, summaries, and supplemental information from lakes and rivers nationwide in Data
  • WOW lessons use the aquatic environment and real lake data to explore basic science and water science concepts in Curricula

Water on the Web was funded by the National Science Foundation from 1997 to 2005.  WOW is now in ‘maintenance mode'.  We are no longer actively developing new materials, but we continue to seek opportunities to expand the site to new areas and we welcome collaborators that wish to contribute data or materials to the site. (http://www.waterontheweb.org site was last updated on April 09, 2020)"

 

The fourth and final additional resource that I would recommend is the Kentucky Watershed Academy of the Kentucky Water Research Institute. 

“The purpose of the Watershed Academy is to train watershed coordinators (who) are critical in carrying out local water quality improvement projects effectively.  They are often the most visible face and voice of water quality information to local citizens and oversee many and varied watershed education and management activities.  For this reason, watershed coordinators need a range of technical support and guidance … (provided by the) six initial training modules for the Kentucky Watershed Academy.  These modules provide a strong foundation for watershed coordinators and other water quality professionals to better understand and navigate the wide range of challenges and opportunities they will inevitably confront in their daily efforts to improve water quality in Kentucky.

The six core modules address the following subjects…

  1. The Clean Water Act and Related Water Quality Laws
  2. Water Quality Basics
  3. Dealing with Data
  4. Land Use Impacts and Related Best Management Practices
  5. Likely Partners
  6. Effective Communications”

For anyone interested in viewing the videos from these modules, use the following playlists,

Kentucky Water Research Institute

1.       Module 1: Clean Water Act

2.       Module 2: Water Quality Basics

3.       Module 3: Dealing with Data

4.       Module 4: Land Use and Related Best Management Practices

5.       Module 5: Likely Partners

6.       Module 6: Effective Communications

(All 61 videos)

An additional playlist is Watershed Watch in Kentucky and there is also an interesting tutorial for a mobile application named Map My Watershed.


I should note that there is the Virginia Water Resources Research Center (VWRRC) at Virginia Tech that provides links to both the resources Water Studies and Virginia Water Educators, but I could not find an equivalent to a Kentucky Watershed Academy, therefore I provided information on the Kentucky program. 

From the VWRRC history, “In 1964, a congressional act established a network of 54 water resource programs to be placed at land-grant universities across the nation. Virginia Tech was selected to house the Commonwealth’s water center in 1965 under the name “Virginia Water Resources Research Center” (“The Water Center”).”  The Water Research Institutes in the neighboring states of North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia also provide information that might be valuable for water resource management in the Southern Appalachians.


Please contact me in the comments, or at walterparker@vt.edu if you would have questions or comments.  

I hope that this blog is of value to you,  

Sincerely, W.P. “Walt” Parker, PE

Location: Whitetop Laurel Creek near Damascus, VA, USA

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