Charter
StreamWatch Principles and Objectives
The ultimate purpose of StreamWatch is to help maintain and improve the health of streams and rivers in the Rivanna basin. Many organizations and agencies share this goal, and a key principle of StreamWatch is the recognition that conservation is a community effort—that close cooperation between individuals and groups is essential to successful watershed management.
The seeds of the StreamWatch program were planted by the community-driven Rivanna River Basin Roundtable. In the recommendations section of their 1998 State of the Basin Report, the Roundtable called for … “a multi-disciplinary, interagency data collection and monitoring program…” and “…a systematic and coordinated data base of all information related to the Rivanna River…” StreamWatch’s foremost objective is to provide the community with high-quality scientific data and information about stream and watershed conditions throughout the Rivanna basin. The pursuit of this objective entails three program components: 1) monitoring, 2) data consolidation, and 3) information development and distribution.
monitoring
The StreamWatch monitoring program will employ professionally accepted protocols subject to quality control and oversight by science advisors and by established agencies and organizations. Stream Watch’s monitoring efforts shall be designed to complement rather than to reproduce the work of other organizations and agencies.
data consolidation
StreamWatch will consolidate Rivanna basin data and information from various sources, and will maintain and present data and information in formats that can be readily accessed and understood by the public.
information development and distribution
Each year, StreamWatch will publish an assessment of conditions and trends within the streams and watersheds of the Rivanna basin. The assessment will be distributed to program volunteers, non-governmental organizations, participating landowners, local, state and federal environmental and resource and resource management agencies, planners and planning commissioners, local elected officials, and local media.
To insure the program’s relevance to community-based watershed management, StreamWatch shall be guided by a steering committee composed of representatives from partner organizations. The scope of activities undertaken by StreamWatch partners includes land conservation, technical assistance for land management, sewage treatment, enforcement of environmental regulations, planning, conservation advocacy, water supply management, and conservation education. To serve its diverse partners, StreamWatch refrains from advocacy. Our fundamental objective is to perform science-based environmental monitoring, assessment, and reporting. StreamWatch may provide management recommendations at the request of partners, but the recommendations must receive the unanimous endorsement of the steering committee.