Paradise Creek
An Education and Research Watershed
The need for watershed restoration has become evident from the staggering amount of water bodies now listed as impaired under the Clean Water Act. Successful watershed restoration requires an understanding of the complex interaction between climate, land use, hydrology, water quality, ecology, and the human behavioral and economic considerations of those living in and interacting with the environment. In individual watersheds, landowners, municipalities, state and federal agencies are seeking information and tools to evaluate the effectiveness of efforts to improve water quality. At the research level, tools and models are being developed to represent more accurately a region’s water and pollutant transport processes, but applications to situations having a significant impact are limited.
With funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the NSF-CAREER program, development of an Education and Research Watershed was initiated in July, 2000. The aim of this watershed is to provide education to students and citizens about hydrology, water quality and many other disciplines associated with watershed restoration, and to develop a comprehensive data set for the development and testing of distributed models.
Paradise Creek Watershed was selected to serve as the Education and Research Watershed because it represents the NWRR with respect to hydrology, water quality, climate and land use. The creek itself flows through Moscow and the University of Idaho campus and a large body of knowledge exists on its history, hydrology and water quality. Further it is one of the first water bodies to develop a TDML implementation plan in the state of Idaho. Many Local, State and Federal Agencies are actively working with landowners in Paradise Creek Watershed to establish watershed restoration plans.