Residential Stewardship

Want to start a Stream Watch program or just disconnect your downspout? This section covers many ways individual residents can minimize their impact on local waterways. Check out Why Watersheds? as it might also help with making the case for good stewardship.

Guidebooks

Urban Subwatershed Restoration Manual No. 8: Pollution Source Control Practices (Version 2.0)
Authors: T. Schueler, C. Swann, T. Wright, S. Sprinkle Released: 2005
Cost: $35 Add to Cart
Download for Free: Manual 8

This manual presents several methods to assess subwatershed pollution sources in order to develop and target education and/or enforcement efforts that can prevent or reduce polluting behaviors and operations. Manual 8 outlines more than 100 different "carrot" and "stick" options that can be used for this purpose. The manual also presents profile sheets that describe 21 specific stewardship practices for residential neighborhoods, and 15 pollution prevention techniques for control of storm water hotspots.

Adopt-A-Pond Program Document
Authors: Center for Watershed Protection and Herring Run Watershed Association Released: 2005

This report provides educational materials on the function, maintenance, and benefits of stormwater ponds; lessons learned from other Adopt-A-Pond programs; and a process for a watershed group to implement an Adopt-A-Pond program.

Developing and Implementing a Stream Watch Program
Authors: Center for Watershed Protection and Jones Falls Watershed Association Released: 2004

This document provides educational materials on the impacts of humans on streams, to provide lessons learned from other Stream Watch Programs, and to provide a process for a watershed group to implement a Stream Watch Program.

Factsheets and Outreach Materials

This material is meant to provide technical guidance and help generate project and training ideas for small watershed organizations interested in educating local stakeholders on the impacts of watershed-related behaviors. Feel free to use or adapt this material for your group's particular needs (although we do ask that you credit the Center).

DIY Rain Barrel/Rain Garden Installation Guide (Poster)

Use this 11x17 poster the Center made with the Annapolis, MD area watershed association the South River Federation to provide an extensive how-to for both rain barrels and rain gardens!

Sample Homeowner Survey

Designed to gauge level of interest in backyard practices

Sample Community Factsheets - Are You Loving Paxton Creek to Death?

An educational brochure with information on the Paxton Creek watershed and specific actions that homeowners, business owners, developers and local governments can do to help protect and restore Paxton Creek. Fact sheets on: Lawns and Landscaping, Downspout Disconnection, Stream Buffer Management, Outdoor Storage, Dumpster Management, Better Site Design, and Erosion and Sediment Control.

The Practice of Watershed Protection Articles

Below are articles from The Practice of Watershed Protection that pertain specifically to this topic. To purchase the hardbound book or CD of these articles, please visit our store. For citing these articles, add the article author and title to the following: The Practice of Watershed Protection. 2000. T. Schueler and H. Holland, eds. Center for Watershed Protection. Ellicott City, MD. Authors of each individual article are listed as initials at the end of the article, with full names as follows: Carol Anne Barth (CAB), Ken Brown (KBB), Ted Brown (EWB), Whitney Brown (WEB), Deborah Caraco (DSC), Richard Claytor (RAC), Hye Yeong Kwon (HYK), Jennifer McClean (JMC), Ron Ohrel (RLO), Janet Pelley (JP), Eric Reeves (ER), Chris Swann (CS) and Jennifer Zielinski (JAZ). To view comprehensive list of all downloadable articles from this book, visit the Practice of Watershed Protection Articles page.

4. Nutrient Movement from the Lawn to the Stream?
5. Urban Pesticides: From the Lawn to the Stream
129. The Peculiarities of Perviousness
130. Toward a Low Input Lawn
131. Homeowner Survey Reveals Lawn Management Practices in Virginia
132. Nitrate Leaching Potential From Lawns and Turfgrass
133. Insecticide Impact on Urban and Suburban Wildlife

Links

Virginia Department of Forestry's Rain Garden page

This page offers introductory language as well as a technical manual providing a step by step "how-to" to create your own rain garden.

Community Spaces, Natural Places: a guide to restoration, management and maintenance of community open space

The manual, from the Delaware Coastal Programs, offers guidance for maintenance corporations and homeowners associations tasked with management of vast areas of open space to restore their community open space to a more natural landscape.

Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat and Conservation Landscaping: Chesapeake Bay Watershed

This guidebook from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service categorizes all the Bay area's native plants with photos, characteristics, conditions, habitat, wildlife.

healthy waters

The Healthy Waters Institute, a project of Oregon Trout, released healthy waters with the goal to reach all Oregon classrooms to engage students with their home waters and ensure future committed water stewards.

Nonpoint Source Outreach Toolbox

The Toolbox, released by the U.S. EPA, contains a comprehensive set of Web-based resources designed to assist communities across the U.S. conduct locally effective watershed education and outreach activities. It also includes a searchable catalog of nearly 800 print, radio, and TV ads and outreach materials in the following categories: lawn and garden care, motor vehicle care, pet care, septic system care, household chemicals and waste, and general stormwater and storm drain awareness.

Center for Watershed Protection © 2008
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