Connecting forest scientists and
landscape architects

By Kim Dionis

Reprinted from Penn State Agriculture, Winter/Spring 2000,
courtesy of the College of Agricultural Sciences

Watershed management issues are complex and interrelated. How a community handles development and land use, for example, directly affects water supply, stormwater, wildlife habitats and stream management. As government agencies, businesses and grassroots organizations work to affect watershed-related policies, the need for professionals with interdisciplinary training is rising.

With this in mind, the School of Forest Resources joined with the Department of Landscape Architecture to form the Center for Watershed Stewardship. Funded by a five-year, $1.78 million grant from the Heinz Endowment, the center offers continuing education courses for professionals in the emerging field of watershed planning and management, as well as a graduate option in watershed stewardship for students in landscape architecture, forest resources and wildlife and fisheries science. The center also hopes to work with other academic programs at Penn State to offer the option.

“In traditional water resource programs, students focus on the physical aspects of planning, such as resource analysis and management practices,” said landscape architect Kerry Wedel, who directs the center. “Our graduate option also gives them training in the social and political side.”

Landscape architecture students receive deeper scientific training in areas such as biological assessment, hydrology and forestry. Forestry students learn more about planning, community involvement and the process of developing a watershed plan. The 19 to 22 credits of course work include watershed stewardship planning; water resources science, social science, public policy or economics; humanities; and communication and design.

Students also work in teams on yearlong community service projects. These “Keystone Projects,” performed in partnership with local governments, nonprofit organizations, landowners and businesses in Pennsylvania communities, introduce students to the processes involved in putting together a sound watershed management plan. “Both the students and the community benefit from these projects,” Lysle Sherwin, associate director of the Center for Watershed Stewardship, said.

In fall 1999, the first Keystone Project kicked off in the Maiden Creek Watershed, a 216-square-mile watershed in Berks and Lehigh counties.

“The Maiden Creek Watershed is a beautiful landscape, with forested headwaters on Blue Mountain and some of the state’s richest farmland in the lower watershed,” Sherwin explained. “The City of Reading’s reservoir near the mouth of this watershed is being affected by nonpoint source runoff from development and agriculture. Community stakeholders, led by the Berks County Conservancy, want to prepare a watershed stewardship plan to protect it.”

“The Berks County Conservancy wants to apply for funding through government programs to make streambank stabilization and other improvements, which requires a formal conservation plan,” graduate student and landscape architect Herb Kupfer explained. “We’re helping the conservancy create their plan by assessing the watershed. We’re looking at such factors as land use, riparian vegetation, stream channel physical and biological conditions and cultural and historic attributes.

“Once you get people thinking of the watershed as their ‘environmental address,’ they realize we’re all connected and need to work together to improve the community’s quality of life and economic prosperity” Lysle Sherwin

Students also are helping the conservancy review the land use controls already in place, such as subdivision regulations, zoning ordinances and how the community is addressing such problems as stormwater management and pollution. Then, with the local steering committee advising the conservancy, they will identify priorities.

Kupfer worked for a traditional landscape architecture firm for four years, designing landscapes in residential, commercial, institutional and resort settings. Then he decided it would be more personally rewarding to do environmental work, restoring streams and assessing watersheds.

“Decisions that affect watersheds often are made based on political boundaries,” he said. “But the 216 square miles that drain into Maiden Creek follow no political boundaries whatsoever. Parts of two counties, five boroughs and 17 townships lie within its boundary. Many different zoning ordinances exist, and everybody has different goals and ideas. The challenge is to get everybody on the same page.”

“Watershed stewardship involves many disciplines, and we have that represented in our student team,” Sherwin said. “Their report, which they will present at a public meeting for feedback, will be a good basis for the community to refine, enhance and finalize their watershed plan.”

“That plan will be used as the basis for a comprehensive multiyear funding strategy,” said Joseph Hoffman, the conservancy’s director of natural resources and conservation. “We hope to generate at least $15 million by the year 2010 to accomplish direct physical improvements in this watershed.”

Wildlife and fisheries science student Beth Finger researches the life cycle of a minnow recently placed on Pennsylvania’s endangered species list. She added the watershed stewardship option to her graduate program, because she saw the importance of being able to deal with different kinds of people when working on water quality issues.

“It’s challenging to get everyone to meet in the middle,” Finger said. “But watershed stewardship is about compromise — being able to see that everyone involved has a common interest in clean water.”

Sherwin added, “Once you get people thinking of the watershed as their ‘environmental address,’ they realize we’re all connected and need to work together to improve the community’s quality of life and economic prosperity.”

Continuing education offerings so far have included co-sponsorship of the first statewide citizens’ conference for abandoned mine drainage, in cooperation with Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Pennsylvania Environmental Council and other organizations.

The course, Principles of Wetland Design, was taught by wetlands ecologist Dr. Andrew Cole and landscape architect Ken Tamminga. Trout Stream Restoration — Ecological Principles into Practice, a course on restoration and fish habitat enhancement in freestone trout streams, was hosted by the Center for Watershed Stewardship and Penn State Outreach and Cooperative Extension. Speakers included forest hydrologist Dr. William Sharpe, civil engineer Dr. Peggy Johnson, landscape architect and Penn State alumnus Brian Auman and experts from government, business and other universities.

More information about the Center for Watershed Stewardship is available by mail: 227 East Calder Way, University Park, Pa 16801, or on the Web at www.larch.psu.edu/ watershed

Lysle Sherwin (left) and Kerry Wedel direct the new Center for Watershed Stewardship, a collaborative training and education program of the School of Forest Resources and the Department of Landscape Architecture. They are helping to prepare professionals in the emerging field of watershed planning and management.