Using Multi-Objective Management to Reduce Flood Losses in Your

pollutants is sediment. When soil is eroded, sediment accumulates in downstream
waterways, settling out where the river slows down, such as where it enters a
lake. Sedimentation will gradually fill in channels and lakes, reducing their ability
to carry or store flood waters.
BMPs reduce erosion and sedimentation by two techniques: minimizing
erosion with vegetation, and capturing sediment before it leaves a site. Slowing
runoff on its way to a drainage channel increases infiltration into the soil and
minimizes the loss of topsoil from erosion and the resulting sedimentation. Runoff
can be slowed down with vegetation, terraces, contour strip farming, no-till farm
practices, and impoundments (sediment basins, farm ponds, wetlands, etc.).
BMPs can also be incorporated into retention and detention basins,
drainageways, and other parts of new developments. They clean stormwater runoff
by filtering it or letting pollutants settle to the bottom of a basin before it is
drained.
Because of the need to improve the water quality in our rivers and lakes,
several state and federal laws mandate the use of best management practices for
new developments and various land uses. Specific BMPs and structural measures
may be required on industrial sites, mined lands, construction sites, farms,
forested areas, and intensively used public lands.
To Find Out More > > Local and regional stormwater or sanitary agencies
can give you information about stormwater management. Soil and Water
Conservation Districts and their Natural Resources Conservation Service staff have
both the expertise in watershed measures and the contacts with watershed
landowners. State environmental protection or natural resources agencies can
provide guidance on best management practices. Know Your Watershed is another
group that can help.
Wetlands protection
Wetlands is the collective term for marshes, swamps, bogs, and similar
areas found in flat vegetated areas, in depressions in the landscape, and between
dry land and water along the edges of streams, rivers, lakes, and coastlines.
Wetlands filter runoff and adjacent surface waters to protect the quality of lakes,
bays, and rivers, and protect many of our sources of drinking water. They can
store large amounts of flood waters, slowing and reducing downstream flows.
They can protect shorelines from erosion. Wetlands serve as a source of many
commercially and recreationally valuable species of fish, shellfish, and wildlife.
Section 404 of the Clean Water Act regulates the discharge of dredged and
fill material into waters of the United States, including wetlands. For purposes of
the regulatory program for Section 404, wetlands are defined as areas that are
inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration
sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a
prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions.
Activities in waters of the United States that are regulated under this program
include fill for development, water resource projects (such as dams and levees),
infrastructure development (such as highways), and conversion of wetlands to
uplands for farming and forestry.
The Section 404 program is jointly administered by the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Corps
administers the day-to-day program, including permit decisions. The EPA
develops and interprets the environmental criteria used in evaluating Section 404
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