The Kentucky Watershed Management Framework: Lessons Learned

Abstract

Beginning in 1997, a consortium of agencies and organizations began implementing the Kentucky Watershed Management Framework, a form of the USEPA’s model for integrated management of water resources. The framework is intended to focus scarce human and financial resources on watersheds where they can be most effective, by means of a repeated five-year cycle of analysis, prioritization, and action. The Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute and the Kentucky River Authority coordinated the implementation of the Framework in its inaugural basin, the Kentucky River Basin. Now, seven years along in the process and halfway through the second five-year cycle, staff at the KWRRI continue to serve in the “basin coordinator” role. There have been many lessons learned along the way, most of which relate to the “implementation phase” of the cycle during which management activities are expected to occur within the prioritized watersheds. This paper provides an overview of the Kentucky Watershed Framework process as well as some general lessons that have been learned as a consequence of implementing the process in the Kentucky River Basin.