Photo: Gerald S. Williams
Section 1. The Watershed Today
OVERVIEW
The Schuylkill watershed is a large, complex and continually changing place
that reflects millions of years of natural history, hundreds of years of human
settlement and the forces of human activity in the region today. It is difficult
to take a single snapshot that portrays the richness of the watershed, but
it does have some defining characteristics.
- The watershed flows through four natural regions whose different geologic and topographic settings provide the foundation for its drainage patterns and the natural characteristics of its ground and surface waters. These regions have strongly influenced historic settlement and land use patterns that help explain why the watershed looks the way it does today.
- Nearly 75 percent of the watershed comprises an intricate network of small headwaters streams that are particularly vulnerable to individual and cumulative land-use decisions and practices.
- Nearly 85 percent of the watershed still remains in agriculture and forest, but an increasing number of its tributaries are affected by suburban development.
- While recent population increases have been moderate, suburban development is consuming large amounts of land, particularly in rapidly growing areas of Chester and Montgomery Counties. If such trends continue, they threaten to consume over 100,000 acres of land every ten years.
- The watershed is an irreplaceable source of water for a region becoming increasingly reliant on groundwater. At the same time, impervious cover created by suburban development is reducing the replenishment of groundwater reserves.
- The biological health of the watershed’s aquatic communities is a strong indicator of prevailing water quality conditions. A recently completed five-year assessment of 19 locations, which included most of the watershed’s tributaries, revealed a degradation of biological conditions at over half of the study sites.
Critical to our understanding of the watershed is the recognition that it functions as an interconnected system, or what might be called the watershed ecosystem. Actions upstream affect conditions downstream. How we use and manage groundwater can have a profound impact on stream flow. Surface water conditions determine the health of aquatic communities. Nearly everything is connected to everything else.
Much of our decision-making within the watershed ecosystem is fragmented. As a result, it is difficult to understand the cumulative and significant impact of individual actions such as an approval of a residential subdivision or a new power plant. However, as we will show, there is a growing concern for the entire watershed as a result of an increasing number of public and nonprofit initiatives.
Site Design: Tevlin & Clarke
