A statewide program to educate local decision makers about the impacts of land use choices on water quality
AWARE Colorado Update October 2004
Check out AWARE’s new publication
AWARE Colorado’s new guide, "Water Protection Toolkit for Local Officials: Connecting Land Use with Water Quality," was developed to help land use decision makers better understand proven approaches to protect water quality through community planning.
The toolkit has ideas about ways to safeguard water resources, examples from Colorado communities, and suggested resources for learning more. With sections on the water and land connection, reducing impervious surfaces, collaboration, planning and zoning tools, reducing transportation-related impacts, improved landscaping and regulatory programs, the toolkit raises awareness of the importance that planning plays in protecting the state’s water bodies.
The toolkit is designed for use in conjunction with an AWARE Colorado community presentation. (See below.) For more information about the AWARE Colorado program visit www.awarecolorado.org.
AWARE gears up for its first community presentations
AWARE team members will start visiting Colorado communities this fall to make presentations that explain the relationship between land use and water quality. The presentations to local land use decision makers give specific strategies that communities can adopt to protect water resources.
AWARE also offers a 10-minute introductory presentation, which is designed to fit into any agenda.
Anyone interested in requesting information about presentations for their communities can contact AWARE project manager Cynthia Peterson at 303-861-5195 or cpeterson@awarecolorado.org.
Some perspective on impervious surfaces
Because AWARE focuses largely on the impact that impervious surfaces have on polluted runoff, the following Colorado NPS Connection newsletter article about a National Geophysical Data Center study is of interest:
"A recent study estimates that the total impervious surface area (ISA) – streets and roads, rooftops, parking lots, etc. – within the contiguous United States adds up to approximately 112,610 square kilometers, almost the size of the state of Ohio. In addition, this number was found to be slightly larger than the area covered by wetlands in the lower 48 states."
(Log on www.ourwater.org/econnection/connection14/imperviouscover.html to read the entire article.)