By Bryan Swistock, Penn State Extension Water Resources Coordinator

The core mission of most watershed organizations is to increase awareness about the features, functions, and ecosystem services provided by their local watershed. A local Centre County watershed created a "Watershed Atlas" to accomplish this goal.

The Spring Creek watershed includes the more populous regions of Centre County in central Pennsylvania including the cities of State College, Bellefonte, and Penn State University.

The watershed drains a vibrant ecosystem that provides numerous ecosystem services to the rapidly growing Centre Region.

The Spring Creek Watershed Commission was created in 1997 to establish a long-range vision including a comprehensive Watershed Management Plan to protect and enhance the quality of life within the Spring Creek Watershed.

The "Spring Creek Atlas" was the brainchild of Barbara Fisher, a long-time advocate and conservationist living in the watershed. She worked with the Spring Creek Watershed Commission to form a group of like-minded conservationists who embraced her idea to create a clearinghouse of watershed information.

Because water is so important, the group believed that the community at large should have a better understanding of Spring Creek – its history, its geology, its impact on the economy, and its issues and future.

These conservationists created the Spring Creek Watershed Atlas Work Group encompassing residents, scientists, and professionals who work and live in the watershed.

Together, using their collective expertise and networks, they developed topics for articles, solicited authors, reviewed content, and maintained the resulting website where the Atlas lives online to allow public access to watershed information.

The web-based format allowed for the Atlas to be a living repository where articles could easily be added or revised as needed.

The Work Group used funds from the Watershed Commission to employ a part-time specialist to create and manage the website where the various articles are housed.

To date, more than 50 articles, generally between 700 and 1,500 words each, are included in the atlas. Most articles also include maps, illustrations and pictures to support that topic.

The evolving Atlas adds more articles each month to provide a one-stop-shop where residents and professionals can find a wealth of watershed information in the following broad categorie--:

-- Nature of the Watershed articles describe the physical setting of the watershed and aquatic and biological resources. Within this section, one can readily find maps that show the groundwater and surface water boundaries and the origins of the large amounts of groundwater that provide drinking water to the entire watershed population and fuel the economic engine of Centre County industries.

-- Recreation articles describe fishing, birding, kayaking and other important recreational services provided to the community in the watershed.

-- Economy articles explain how the watershed impacts the local economy through municipal water and wastewater, historical mills that dictated how the watershed was developed, and historical and existing railroads that crisscross the watershed.

-- Government articles describe regulatory aspects of the federal, state, county, and local governments that directly address conservation and development including river basin commissions, source water protection, zoning, and stormwater management ordinances.

-- Issues and Solutions articles discuss how human activities are affecting natural resources in the watershed along with actions to minimize these impacts such as open space preservation, stream water quality monitoring efforts, habitat improvements, invasive species, and stormwater management.

For watershed organizations looking to elevate their public outreach, the Spring Creek Watershed Atlas provides an example of how the organization can provide an important public service with answers to common questions about the history, ecology, and water resources of your watershed.

To learn more, visit the Spring Creek Watershed Atlas website.

How Clean Is Your Stream?

DEP’s Interactive Report Viewer allows you to zoom in on your own stream or watershed to find out how clean your stream is or if it has impaired water quality using the latest information in the draft 2020 Water Quality Report.

(Note: Adapted from an article written by Dr. Robert Carline, Chairperson, Spring Creek Watershed Atlas Work Group for the Centre Daily Times, February 27, 2021.)

(Reprinted from the latest Penn State Extension Watershed Winds newsletter.  Click Here to sign up for your own copy.)

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[Posted: April 22, 2021]

4/26/2021