Strategy Overview

Watershed Protection Program

The Foundation’s Watershed Protection Program aims to create the long-term conditions — the practices, policies, and public engagement — that will ensure the Delaware River Watershed supports aquatic life and recreation in and on the water. To this end, we support work to concentrate land protection and restoration practices that maintain and improve stream health in targeted sub-watersheds; secure robust and sustained regulatory protections and funding; and achieve equitable and widespread public access to and engagement with our rivers and streams. We approach this work through three distinct yet complementary strategies: Watershed Wide, Targeted Sub-Watersheds, and Constituency Building.

 

Watershed Wide Strategy

We support applied research, data gathering and analysis, and advocacy focusing on four priority stressors: loss of forested headwaters, stormwater, agricultural run-off and depletion of underground water supply. While research shows multiple threats to the health of the Delaware River watershed, we focus on these four based on the importance they have on water quality and the likelihood that our grantmaking could have a significant impact.

The work we have funded through this program typically addresses one or more of these threats as it relates to all or a large portion of the watershed. For example, our grants have supported research, mapping and modeling to increase understanding of the health of floodplains throughout the Delaware River system, as well as educational outreach to build understanding of and support for publicly funded land-conservation programs in watershed states.