Watershed Management Conference 2005
July 19-22, 2005
Woodlands Hotel & Suites - Williamsburg, VA

Managing Watersheds for Human and Natural Impacts: Engineering, Ecological, and Economic Challenges
Urbanization and changes in land use are a pressing concern throughout the U.S. and the world. Land is becoming a scarce resource in some locations while urban sprawl in some areas is actually consuming the landscape at rates faster than the population itself is growing. Watershed managers are faced with many new issues as they work to meet new water quantity and quality regulations that address more than simply increased flood risks. Managing for ecological flows for sensitive species, considering the arrival of new water-borne diseases such as the West Nile virus, and dealing with increasingly complex regulations, especially TMDL's, are just some of the challenges facing today's hydrologic engineer and watershed manager.

Highlights of the 2005 conference include:

Dam Removal - With more than 145 dams removed in the U.S. alone in 2004, a centerpiece of this conference will be six special oral sessions devoted exclusively to dam removal. The aging of much of the nation's dam infrastructure and a growing appreciation of the ecological benefits of removing dams makes dam removal a topic of interest among engineers and environmentalists alike. The conference will feature numerous case studies on dam removals along with presentations on channel dynamics and changes to sediment upstream and downstream of removed dams. A panel discussion will provide a fitting wrap up on this theme.


Decision Support - Two special sessions will present cutting-edge computational tools to support operational and management decisions within watersheds - including the USGS modular modeling system (MMS) and the GIS Weasel. Tools for making cost-effective ecosystem services decisions and drought management decisions will be discussed along with presentations on tools specifically designed to manage the Colorado River and the Truckee River basins.


Chesapeake Bay - Two special sessions are being devoted to this national treasure. Papers will present findings from many different studies of the Bay's extremely sensitive ecosystem, which have been performed to better understand its ecology and how best to protect it. Presentations will focus on such varied issues as wetland restoration, sediment transport, best management practices, Smart Growth, and real-time watershed surveillance in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.


Fire - Three special sessions will be dedicated to issues of watershed management in the aftermath of fires, including documenting the unique challenges to watershed management circumstances that arise after specific fire events. Presentations will also examine the impacts of fires on sediment transport, pollutant transport, and changes in flood potential. Other conference session topics include low-impact development, river restoration, urban hydrology, biological pollution, nutrient management, riparian systems, groundwater, watershed hydrology, water quality management, TMDL, watershed modeling, CITY Green Computer Program, geomorphology, best practices, GIS, and policy issues. More than 100 posters will present cutting-edge research on topics ranging from low-impact development applications through numerical modeling for ecological assessment of streamflow to GIS-based watershed modeling and the impacts of ATVs in national forests. A special posteronly session presents cyberinfrastructure and its role across a spectrum of watershed management issues.

Additionally, two pre-conference workshops will be offered on Tuesday providing short technical courses of major topics in ports development.

Treatment of Uncertainty in Water Resource Modeling and Analysis - Scientists and engineers dealing with water resources are often confronted with uncertainty caused by incomplete knowledge and/or natural randomness. Recently there has been greater interest in the use of probabilistic uncertainty analysis methods, which allow a better definition of the range of likely outcomes and the likelihood of each outcome. This workshop will provide an introduction to several such methodologies including Monte Carlo simulation, analytical error propagation techniques, and probability/logic tree analysis method.

Curve Number Rainfall-Runoff: Professional Application - The Curve Number method is widely used in applied hydrology and environmental impact analysis. This short course will provide an open factual background on the Curve Number Method: origins and assumption, limits of applications, and recent findings, leading to more informed professional application of the method. Its role in understanding general rainfall-runoff hydrology will be explored and discussed. The workshop includes active, open discussion with peers and the presenters.

Registration information for the conference and these two workshops can be found on the conference website, along with a complete listing of the technical program.

Please visit www.asce.org/conferences/watershedmanagement2005 to register.