Watershed management is key to improving America's water resources.

Although effective in protecting drinking water, the current patchwork of federal, state, and local regulations does not consider the full range of benefits provided by watersheds in an integrated way, according to a new report of the National Research Council (NRC).

The quality of the nation's most polluted waters has improved enormously over the past 20 years, largely as a result of strong action taken to control pollution from sources such as municipal wastewater treatment plants and industrial discharges. Ironically, however, some of the cleanest waters have continued to degrade because pollution from other, more diffuse sources, such as urban and agricultural runoff, is harder to control. The recent emergence of toxic organisms, like Pfiesteria in streams flowing to the Chesapeake Bay and Cryptosporidium in Milwaukee's water supply, underscores the fact that many lakes, rivers, wetlands, and coastal areas across America fail to meet federal water quality standards. Some bodies of water have experienced loss of biodiversity, decline of fisheries, and curtailment in commercial and recreational activities. The NRC committee believes that the more systems-oriented perspective offered by watershed-scale management would improve water resources that have been degraded by pollution.

Reauthorization of the Clean Water Act offers the nation an important opportunity to strengthen its attention to watersheds and the many human activities that affect or are affected by water. The committee has recommended that the reauthorized Clean Water Act be designed to conserve and enhance the natural ability of an ecosystem to detoxify water; to empower local and regional watershed managers to increase efficiency and improve cost-effectiveness; and to encourage partnerships between the management agencies and the National Science Foundation (NSF), which funds related scientific research.

By managing on the scale of entire watersheds - which include drainage areas and the water, soils, vegetation, animals, land use, and human activities associated with them - policy makers can find long-term solutions to many natural-resource problems. Watershed-scale management can be difficult because it requires cooperation and information sharing across jurisdictions and agencies. It does, however, address diverse resource management problems in an integrated way by drawing together concepts from the physical, biological, social, and economic sciences.

To date, watershed management has been most successful at small scales and in relatively simple systems. Implementation has been more difficult in larger, more complex watersheds where more problems - and more people's interests - must be addressed.

In addition to suggestions for improving the Clean Water Act, the NRC committee made other recommendations for improving watershed management:

* The President and Congress should establish a stable and dedicated source of funding for the federal portion of watershed management partnerships, such as a trust fund or a revenue-sharing strategy. Funds should be available to state, regional, and local organizations for research, planning, implementation, and ongoing evaluation of watershed initiatives.

* The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, NSF International, and other federal agencies involved in watershed studies should increase their investment in research. Data critical to watershed management include information on toxic contaminants and information on the water quality of streams. These agencies should support focused research rather than diffuse programs.

* States should establish and maintain statewide databases that contain ecological, social, and economic information organized by watershed size. These databases should be available to local watershed managers through the Internet.

* The engineering and scientific communities should develop better, more user-friendly computer systems to help decision makers understand and evaluate alternative management approaches at the watershed scale.

* In the normal course of their work, federal agencies should examine the watershed-wide implications of their policies, programs, and processes for issuing permits for dredging or filling wetlands. The agencies also should take into account the ecological, social, and economic consequences of their actions, rather than using a limited project-by-project approach.

Copies of New Strategies for America's Watersheds are available from the National Academy Press for $42.95 plus shipping. To order, call the press at [phone] or [phone].