Report on the condition of the 86,000 miles of streams and rivers and 161,455 lake acres in Pennsylvania, as well as descriptions of pollution control and monitoring programs.

Summary of the Department of Environmental Protection's program to plug abandoned oil and gas wells. It is estimated that as many as 760,000 wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania, and over 500,000 remain unaccounted for.

Pennsylvania’s waterways face numerous threats, including excess nutrient loading, sedimentation, decreased flow, chemical pollutants, invasive species, access, and recreational conflict. In the last decade, there was a rapid expansion of community watershed organizations (CWOs) aimed at solving local watershed issues across the commonwealth and the nation. The development of local, volunteer-led watershed organizations seems to represent a paradigm shift to a community-based approach for generating long-term solutions to local watershed problems.

New report analyzes 4,000 cities to demonstrate the health, climate and biodiversity benefits of source water protection

Research has shown that the number of “dead zones”—areas of seafloor with too little oxygen for most marine life—has increased by a third between 1995 and 2007. According to the researchers, dead zones are now “the key stressor on marine ecosystems” and “rank with over-fishing, habitat loss, and harmful algal blooms as global environmental problems.”

This publication provides an overview of the benefits of buffer areas and then continues with a practical step-by-step planning guide. It also includes several case studies of successful streamside buffer projects

Long regarded as wastelands, wetlands are now recognized as important features in the landscape that provide numerous beneficial services for people and for fish and wildlife. Some of these services, or functions, include protecting and improving water quality, providing fish and wildlife habitats, storing floodwaters, and maintaining surface water flow during dry periods. These beneficial services, considered valuable to societies worldwide, are the result of the inherent and unique natural characteristics of wetlands.

Forests, riparian buffers, wetlands and other natural lands are essential for the protection of water quality and aquatic habitat.

This presentation focuses on various barriers and opportunities in generating public and agency support and cooperation in local watershed protection efforts.

The most recent National Water Quality Inventory reports that runoff from urbanized areas is the leading source of water quality impairments to surveyed estuaries and the third largest source of impairments to surveyed lakes. This overview provides information on how urbanization affects water quality, what can be done to minimize the impacts, and a list of related publications for further reading.

The occurrence of hypoxia, or low dissolved oxygen, is increasing in coastal waters worldwide and represents a significant threat to the health and economy of our Nation’s coasts and Great Lakes. This report discusses the causes and impacts of hypoxia, means of addressing the problem, and federal research on the issue.

Provides a detailed description of forests and their benefits; analysis of threats to forest land; and description of various tools municipalities can use to maintain, protect, and restore forests.

Timber harvesting, increases in agricultural and urban lands, and the lack of protective environmental practices have led to excess sediment and nutrients washed into the Bay. When sediment, which is composed of loose particles of clay, silt, and sand, becomes suspended, it makes the water cloudy and reduces the amount of sunlight that reaches the submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) that provides habitat and stability to the bay. The reduction in water clarity in the Bay has lead to a drastic decline in SAV over the past 30 years and this coupled with poor water quality, leaves the Chesapeake Bay classified as an “impaired water body”.

Extensive scientific research documents that vegetated strips of land along waterways provide extensive water quality and other environmental and economic benefits.