Environmental Management: Principles and practice

Watershed/catchment planning and management
A watershed (‘catchment’ is often used in the UK) offers a biogeophysical unit usually
with well-defined boundaries and within which agroecosystem use, human activity
and water resources are interrelated. Researchers and environmental managers have
made use of watersheds or subdivisions (micro-watersheds) to study how land use
changes affect hydrology, etc., since the 1930s (starting with the US Forest Service
Coweeta Experimental Forest, North Carolina) (Vogt et al., 1997:40). Watershed
experiments seek to establish the effects of disturbing vegetation or soil, monitoring
inputs to the basin (measuring sunlight, rainfall, etc) and outputs (by measuring
quantity and quality of flows from streams or material removed as produce). One of
the best known of these is the Hubbard Brook Experimental Watershed, New
Hampshire (USA) (Van Dyne, 1969:53–76). Watersheds are useful for forestry,
agricultural development, erosion control, water supply, pollution and fisheries
management.
Armitage (1995:470) felt that integrated watershed management, like soil
erosion control, had focused mainly on technical issues (Easter et al., 1986; FAO,
1988; Pereira, 1989). Recently there has been interest in using watersheds as units
for integrated biophysical and socioeconomic management to promote better
community development or land husbandry and sustainable development, and a
number of major agencies have published guidelines or handbooks (Bouchet, 1983;
FAO, 1986; Naiman, 1992). In India participatory watershed development has been
used to try and improve rural livelihoods and counter environmental degradation
(Turton and Farrington, 1998). Hufschmidt’s (1986) model has attracted particular
attention as an integrative methodological framework, although it is not really
ecologically focused.
Bioregionalism
This is an approach which argues for human self-sufficiency at a local scale.
Sometimes advocates have been somewhat naive, on occasion verging on eco-fascist.