SGSF Water Resources Committee

State forestry agencies have worked with Southern forest landowners for more than 25 years to provide clean and abundant water for the almost 78 million Southern residents. This water, which flows mostly from private forestlands, provides the region's drinking water, fish and wildlife habitats and sources for a variety of recreational water sports.

For their part, the SGSF established the Water Resources Committee in 2003 to advise them on water issues and to improve technical expertise in forest watershed management. The primary role of the Committee is to develop processes by which Best Management Practices (BMPs) are applied consistently on forestlands across the South.

These practices are developed by state forestry agencies and other experts to help landowners, foresters, loggers, and others protect water quality when conducting forest management activities.

Examples include streamside and wetland management, road construction and maintenance, timber harvesting, and reforestation.

To ensure fresh, clean water for future generations, the Water Resources Committee:

• Developed scientific and regional protocol for BMP implementation, monitoring, and reporting implementation data. This protocol allows individual states to assess their own state's BMPs in a regionally consistent way and to report comparable information.
• Established key program elements needed for an ideal state water quality program. Established a state BMP program review process. This state and ederal partnership provides feedback to states for program improvement in BMP education, monitoring and other areas. It serves as a catalyst for state, federal, industrial, and academic representatives to learn from each other.
• Continues to provide technical training to Committee members.
• Is developing a statistical guide for designing and reporting BMP implementation to ensure statistically sound results. The guide was completed in the fall of 2005.
• Is working with several other partners to estimate pollution load reductions that result when silviculture BMPs are properly implemented. The project will be initiated in 2006 and should be available by the fall of 2007.

As a result of these efforts, the forestry community of the South is in the forefront of all land disturbing activities in protecting water quality.