As pressure from development, drought and climate change threaten our natural resources, water availability and quality of life here in the Southeast, many communities and organizations have found solutions for managing growth while conserving their green infrastructure.  To showcase some of these most innovative case studies, the Forum is proud to announce the release of it's newest special report, Building Sustainable Communities: Quality Growth Strategies in the Southeast. 

This 40-page publication first looks at challenges facing the Southeast as a whole and then takes you on a tour of towns, villages, and neighborhood developments where on-the-ground Quality Growth strategies are being implemented successfully.  Found within the report as well are training and on-line resources for individuals, organizations and communities. 

A limited number of hard copies of Building Sustainable Communities are available for free by contacting our offices at 615-627-1310 or kd@southeastwaterforum.org.  Electronic copies are available: Cover (pdf file 3.5MB)  / Section 1 (pdf file 3.3MB) / Section 2 (pdf file 3.3 MB)   

Open Space Institute article: "Protecting Habitat and Diversity in the Southern Appalachians"

Biodiversity is under growing threat from inappropriate timber harvesting, second home development and invasive species.  Enter State Wildlife Action Plans, or SWAPS. These plans, which each state fish and wildlife agency must develop to qualify for federal funding, are designed as a tool to conserve wildlife and vital natural areas before they become more rare and costly to protect.  Click here to read the rest of the article.

All of the SWAPs for the Southeast that have been digitized are also available on the Community Resource Mapper where they can be overlayed with other land and water resource data such as impaired streams, impervious surfaces or protected lands to create custom maps of your community.  Click here to visit the Community Resource Mapper     

This study from the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assesses water-quality conditions for about 2,100 private domestic wells across the United States. The results of this study are described in two USGS publications, including an overview of the study findings (Circular 1332) and a detailed technical report on data sources, analyses, and results (Scientific Investigations Report 2008-5227). Both publications can be downloaded in PDF format from the NAWQA website (see below). Also available in PDF format are two related articles in the Water Well Journal of the National Ground Water Association (NGWA) which briefly summarize USGS study findings and general information on domestic well maintenance, siting, and testing.

EPA recently posted a new Web site called "Watershed Central" to help watershed organizations and others find key information they need to implement watershed approaches.  The primary purpose of the new Watershed Central Web site is to make it easy for organizations find the information in a timely manner that they need to help protect and restore their water resources.   Watershed Central helps users find environmental data, watershed models, nearby local organizations, and guidance documents -- and other information depending on the task at hand.

February 16, 2009 by Clay Carey from The Tennessean: Farms are larger and fewer in number than they were in 2002, according to a new study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There were 79,280 farms in Tennessee last year, down 9 percent from 2002, according to the U.S. Census of Agriculture, a study of farming trends conducted every five years. The amount of land in farms — just under 11 million acres — was down 6 percent from 2002, according to census data.  Click here to read the article online.