Watershed Management in International Development   
 

MSU's Virtual Watershed Management in International Development

R ural development strategies in developing countries increasingly focus on watershed management.  A watershed is an area from which all water drains to a common point, making it an attractive unit for technical efforts to harness scarce water resources and conserve soil for agricultural production and natural resource conservation.  Watershed management is seen as a way to raise agricultural production, conserve natural resources, and reduce poverty in rural uplands.

Managing watersheds, however, is complicated by the fact that people live in them.  Inhabitants of watersheds have a variety of competing interests in how they use land and water resources, some of which may be incompatible with coordinated watershed management approaches.  Connections between different parts and functions of a watershed landscape may not be visible to residents, and the benefits and costs of management interventions will be unevenly distributed among them.  Institutional mechanisms to encourage coordinated approaches to natural resource management typically do not exist.  As a result, watershed management may be very challenging indeed.

This course provides a thorough introduction to the rationale, approaches, and challenges of watershed management in the context of international development.  It focuses equally on technical and socioeconomic issues in watershed management and presents detailed examples from watershed management efforts worldwide.

While watershed management involves some common challenges in numerous contexts worldwide, this course focuses primarily on tropical watersheds characterized by seasonal water shortages.  Augmenting water quantity rather than protecting its quality will be the primary concern along with improving the management of soil and vegetation resources.

Course Offerings

RD 891 - Watershed Management in International Development Fall, 2002 (online through MSU Virtual University)
 
Instructor: John Kerr, Department of Resource Development
 
One credit ­ this course will be offered during the first five weeks of the semester

Please click on the following links to learn more about each specific course.

Outline of lessons

Lesson 1.  Definition, context and objectives of watershed management
Lesson 2.  Socioeconomic issues in watershed management
Lesson 3.  Biophysical issues in watershed management
Lesson 4.  What watershed projects do: technical practices
Lesson 5.  What watershed projects do: organizing people

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