Master planning for stream protection in urban watersheds

Urbanization results in great changes to the landscape and the water environment simply because stormwater runoff differs in quantity and quality from the pre-urbanization state. Streams, rivers, lakes, estuaries and other receiving water bodies experience the changes to runoff frequencies and volumes and react accordingly. The forces behind the observed changes in the receiving waters are discussed in this paper and suggestions are made on how to plan to deal with them. Urban watershed and waterway master planning can help to mitigate, in large part, the impacts imposed on these waters by land-use changes. Although each watershed is unique, some general principles are suggested to deal with these emergent problems.