Strategies for protecting and restoring Rhode Island's watersheds on multiple scales

The Clean Water Act has traditionally preserved the quality and quantity of a region's water by focusing resources on areas with known or anticipated problems. USEPA Region I is taking the supplemental, longer-range approach of protecting areas of New England where natural resources are still health y. As part of Region 1's "New England Resource Protection" approach, stakeh olders participate in an open process that identifies healthy ecosystems an d characterizes how well they support aquatic life and human health. Since the concerns of stakeholders are usually local, the process also displays a reas of nonattainment within individual watersheds and determines their lik ely causes. One of the most powerful ways to display these types of informa tion on multiple scales is to use a geographic information system (GIS). Th e case of phosphorus in southern Rhode Island's Tucker Pond illustrates how a GIS can help integrate concerns from the public, data from Clean Water A ct monitoring, and information from the New England Resource Protection Pro ject to identify types of environmental assessment questions on scales rang ing from states to subwatersheds. By involving the public at all stages of the process and better informing them about their watersheds, this new appr oach makes them better stewards of their environment.