In 2004, the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) launched an innovative and experimental
Model Watershed grant program designed to promote long-term, scientific, and results-based watershed restoration. The goal of BEF’s Model Watershed Program is to advance an iterative restoration strategy that allows tribal and community groups to monitor and evaluate restoration effectiveness, then adjust restoration practices based on measured results. In order to enable such an objectives-oriented and monitoring-intensive approach over a long period of time, BEF commits funding, the services of an independent scientific review team, as well as institutional support to a Model Watershed Partner
for ten successive years. Over time, BEF expects to test this new funding practice and demonstrate that long-term, adaptive management leads to increasingly effective and accountable watershed-scale restoration. To date, BEF has committed to provide 10-year funding and support to five Model Watershed Partnerships throughout the Pacific Northwest, which are located in the lower
Kootenai
River and Benewah Creek in
Idaho, the
Chinook
River and the
Entiat
River in
Washington, and the
Deschutes
River Basin in
Oregon. By 2010, BEF expects to have established a total of twelve Model Watershed Partnerships, some of which may be located outside of the
Pacific Northwest. This poster describes the strengths and weaknesses of the Model Watershed Program and provides examples of long-term, watershed restoration monitoring plans and initial results from current Model Watershed Partnerships. More information is available at
www.b-e-f.org/watersheds/.