New York City's municipal water supply system provides about 1 billion gallons of drinking water a day to over 8.5 million people in New York City and about 1 million people living in nearby Westchester, Putnam, Ulster, and Orange counties. The combined water supply system includes 19 reservoirs and three controlled lakes with a total storage capacity of approximately 580 billion gallons. The city's Watershed Protection Program is intended to maintain and enhance the high quality of these surface water sources. Review of the New York City Watershed Protection Program assesses the efficacy and future of New York City's watershed management activities. The report identifies program areas that may require future change or action, including continued efforts to address turbidity and responding to changes in reservoir water quality as a result of climate change.

In 1997, New York City adopted a mammoth watershed agreement to protect its drinking water and avoid filtration of its large upstate surface water supply. Shortly thereafter, the NRC began an analysis of the agreement's scientific validity. The resulting book finds New York City's watershed agreement to be a good template for proactive watershed management that, if properly implemented, will maintain high water quality. However, it cautions that the agreement is not a guarantee of permanent filtration avoidance because of changing regulations, uncertainties regarding pollution sources, advances in treatment technologies, and natural variations in watershed conditions. The book recommends that New York City place its highest priority on pathogenic microorganisms in the watershed and direct its resources toward improving methods for detecting pathogens, understanding pathogen transport and fate, and demonstrating that best management practices will remove pathogens. Other recommendations, which are broadly applicable to surface water supplies across the country, target buffer zones, stormwater management, water quality monitoring, and effluent trading.

The Clean Water Act (CWA) requires that wetlands be protected from degradation because of their important ecological functions including maintenance of high water quality and provision of fish and wildlife habitat. However, this protection generally does not encompass riparian areasâ€"the lands bordering rivers and lakesâ€"even though they often provide the same functions as wetlands. Growing recognition of the similarities in wetland and riparian area functioning and the differences in their legal protection led the NRC in 1999 to undertake a study of riparian areas, which has culminated in Riparian Areas: Functioning and Strategies for Management. The report is intended to heighten awareness of riparian areas commensurate with their ecological and societal values. The primary conclusion is that, because riparian areas perform a disproportionate number of biological and physical functions on a unit area basis, restoration of riparian functions along America's waterbodies should be a national goal.

Forces of change; Social and economics systems; Forest area conditions; Terrestrial ecosystems; Water quality, wetlands, and aquatic ecosystems.

The timing could not be better for addressing riparian area management and the resulting impacts of surface water. The Forest Service leadership team has identified water and watershed management as the issue of the upcoming decade. These factors and more have moved riparian forests to the forefront of environmental management. Riparian Management in Forests of the Continental Eastern United States gives you the tools you need to take on this task. Each day, thousands of natural resource professionals face the problems involved in managing riparian forests. The challenge: fragmented ownership, fragmented ecosystems, and diverse interest groups. The solution requires a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on a complex mix of government agencies, private interests, and local communities as exemplified in the following initiatives: Chesapeake Bay Program "Save the Bay" Inland West Water Strategy New York City Watershed Project The Pacific Habitat Strategy The Anadromous Fish Habitat Riparian Management in Forests of the Continental Eastern United States summarizes the state-of-the-art in the management of forested riparian areas. It serves as a desktop reference for natural resource administrators, educators, and on-the-ground managers from industry, consulting firms, and municipal, state, and federal agencies who routinely face the complex problems of protecting riparian areas. Features