Healthy watershed.
THE NATIONAL Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) will be commemorating World Water Day on March 22, in the Rio Grande Valley, Portland, in association with the Ginger House Environmental Group and the Bowden Pen Farmers Group. World Water Day is an initiative which grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This year's theme will be 'Water and Culture'.
It is a special occasion to increase public awareness of:
The problems and challenges affecting the sources of water supply and the distribution system.
The impact of the provision of potable water on the health of the population.
NEPA and the Mona Institute of Applied Sciences invite all of Jamaica this World Water Day to go out and plant a tree and in so doing assist in the replenishing of the quantity and quality of Jamaica's water resources, with special focus on our watersheds.
WHY SHOULD WE PROTECT OUR WATERSHEDS?
You are urged to protect our watersheds to prevent degradation and to ensure quality water today and tomorrow. Do your part, let's start! Watershed management involves the integrated management and use of natural resources incorporating social, cultural, and economic development of the watershed. It involves the planned and controlled use of land to enable optimum production of good quality water and to sustain reliable water yields, and soil fertility.
BENEFITS OF WATERSHED MANAGEMENT
Reduction of soil erosion
Increased vegetation cover
Reduction in deforestation
Increased ground water storage
Reduction of the effects of natural disasters
Reduction in stream flow fluctuations
Reduction in turbidity
Increased water-holding capacity of soils
Improved agricultural production and reduction in the loss of agricultural lands.
