Watershed Resources | Rapid Watershed Assessments
Watershed Resources - Rapid Watershed Assessments
Overview
The NRCS is encouraging the development of Rapid Watershed Assessments (RWAs) in order to increase the speed and efficiency generating information to guide conservation implementation, as well as the speed and efficiency of putting it into the hands of local decision makers.
Currently, RWAs are being developed to provide a natural resource snapshot and overview of each Kansas 8-digit Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC-8). The RWAs organize resource information into one document that local conservationists, units of government, and others can use to identify conservation opportunities and direct technical and financial resources to the appropriate sub basins. They provide a description of the sub basins' natural resources, resource concerns, conservation needs, and ability to resolve natural resource issues and concerns. RWAs typically contain the following information:
- Physical resources
- Land use and land cover
- Water quality conditions report
- Soil, stream, precipitation data
- Resource concerns
- Census and social data
- Progress/status of conservation by land use
- Estimated future conservation practice application and associated costs
Most of the data for the RWAs were collected through the National Land Cover Dataset, NRCS National Resources Inventory, Census of Agriculture, and numerous Kansas state agencies including the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), Kansas State Conservation Commission (SCC), and the Kansas Water Office (KWO). Local NRCS and partnership employee field staffs assisted in the compilation and verification of the data.
Over the course of several years, NRCS will be completing RWAs for the 90 HUC-8 sub basins that are contained within Kansas’ boundaries. The following map shows the priority watersheds for Fiscal Years 2006 (green), 2007 (purple), and 2008 (aqua).
The above map is available for download and requires Acrobat Reader.
Fiscal Year 2006-2008 Kansas Rapid Watershed Assessment Watersheds Map (PDF; 801 KB)
Select the following links to view specific resource data for each of the HUC-8 sub basins listed. These documents require Acrobat Reader.
Contact
Bruce Wells
