Photo by Michael Land/Chesapeake Bay Program
The EPA is developing training materials for environmental watershed planners and hazard mitigation specialists at the state and local level to demonstrate the link between water quality protection, watershed planning, source water protection, and hazard mitigation programs. The materials will help professionals engaged in this work better understand how the concepts are related and can enhance planning efforts and improve outcomes when performed together. These products will assist professionals in preparing their planning documents, resulting in mutual benefits to water resource protection, water programs integration, and hazard mitigation. Key to this training is a module on funding, specifically potential funding and financing options, and how those options increase with multi-objective watershed and risk management planning.
The EFC developed a training module and webinar to help explain how a wide variety of financing incentives and funding sources can be used to generate revenue to implement natural hazard mitigation plans that have been integrated with water resource plans. The intention of the training materials is to demonstrate that more funding options become available when water quality, drinking water source protection, wetlands protection, and other ecosystem services are project objectives, compared to hazard reduction alone.