Other Life Sciences Commons^™

Relationships Between Borders, Management Agencies, And The Likelihood Of Watershed Impairment, Josh Epperly, Andrew Witt, Jeffrey Haight, Susan E. Washko, Trisha Brooke Atwood, Janice Brahney, Soren Brothers, Edd Hammill

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

In the United States, the Clean Water Act (CWA) establishes water quality standards important for maintaining healthy freshwater ecosystems. Within the CWA framework, states define their own water quality criteria, leading to a potential fragmentation of standards between states. This fragmentation can influence the management of shared water resources and produce spillover effects of pollutants crossing state lines and other political boundaries. We used numerical simulations to test the null prediction of no difference in impairment between watersheds that cross political boundaries (i.e. state lines, national or coastal borders, hereafter termed “transboundary”) and watersheds that cross no boundaries (hereafter “internal”). …