Land
Nigel Brake
River Advocate, Ward 8 Woods
Our forests and wetlands are not decorative—they are defenders. They filter pollutants, protect against flooding, and offer sanctuary to people and wildlife alike. When we pave over natural lands, we increase polluted runoff that dumps sediment, nutrients, and chemicals into streams and drinking water sources.
We must reimagine what land use can look like when it centers people, especially those historically excluded from decisions about their environment. In communities most impacted by pollution and disinvestment, revitalization means expanding safe, inclusive access to the Potomac.
How you can help
Support state and federal laws that fund conservation and best management practices, important direct investments in community.
River Health Indicators & Analysis
The health of the land in a watershed is intrinsically tied to the health of the streams and rivers that flow through it. Through the use of best management practices (BMPs) in areas designated for development or agriculture we can decrease the potential threats these land uses pose to local streams while still supporting strong and vibrant businesses and communities.
While the Potomac River region has made impressive improvements incorporating these BMPs into the landscape there is still progress to be made.
With the arrival of 2025, the Chesapeake watershed will begin to see a full accounting of restoration and protection measures put into place by local, regional, and federal decision makers. State WIPs included targets for the installation and implementation of best management practices across rural and urban landscapes; however, accounting and crediting of implemented BMPs is still an imperfect science across the watershed. Using the Chesapeake Assessment and Scenario Tool (CAST) to examine the implementation of urban and suburban BMPs across the watershed it is still prevalent that more progress is needed in many regions. The District of Columbia saw the highest percentage of implemented BMPs (71%) which is expected due to its entirely urban setting. The state of Maryland didn’t lag far behind, with implemented urban BMPs reaching 67% of state targets, which outperformed the state of West Virginia by 8%. Unfortunately, Virginia fell well behind other watershed states, reaching only 29% of its goals for urban BMPs. While urban space and engineering can often be hindrances to BMP implementation, increases in the installation of urban BMPs are a must as populations continue to grow and more people move to urban or suburban areas.
Land classified as “agricultural” currently comprises over 25% of the Potomac watershed. While these areas provide essential food and services to many of the region's residents and visitors, they can also impact local water quality through the loss of riparian habitat, sediment runoff, and degraded local water quality due to nutrients and other pollutants. When it comes to installing agricultural BMPs to combat these potential threats the state of Maryland leads the way with the state reaching 81% of its implementation goal in 2023. The next closest state to Maryland in terms of implementation was West Virginia at 61% of its implementation goal reached. Unfortunately, Virginia continues to lag behind other states in the watershed with the state only reaching 49% of its implementation goals in 2023. This trend is concerning considering a large portion of the watershed lies within Virginia’s state boundaries, indicating that those state waters could be at an increased threat for degradation due to a lack of proper pollution mitigating BMPs.
Protecting lands in a watershed via conservation easements, parks, or other land management practices is one of the best ways to ensure protection from future development in sensitive areas. In the two years since our last report a total of 245,072 acres of land have been protected across the Potomac region for a total of 2,013,221 acres protected in the watershed. With this increase over 1/5th of land in the Potomac watershed has been protected and preserved from the threat of future development or degraded land use. Previously, the EPA established a goal of 20% of lands in the watershed listed as “protected” — a goal the Potomac is currently meeting and exceeding.
Protected lands in a watershed not only preserve natural landscapes, but they also work collectively as a suite of other land management strategies to help reduce runoff, improve habitat, and increase local water quality. When paired with other best management practices these lands not only serve to preserve natural resiliency in a watershed, but also dilute harmful effects from urban centers like water temperature increases and stormwater.
In recent years, with the pace of urbanization accelerating across the nation and in our region in particular, land use has become a key indicator for watershed health and risk of pollution. Rivers that have heavily urbanized watersheds with little forest cover often experience more polluted runoff and degraded water quality. However, as is to be expected, watersheds with high percentages of forested land and wetlands often see better water quality and more healthy and vibrant ecosystems. Because of the size of the Potomac watershed and its long history of human habitation, land use is unlikely to change dramatically year over year. Currently, 53% of the watershed is forested and 6% is wetlands or water, indicating that just under two thirds of the watershed is made up of undeveloped river-healthy environments. Unfortunately, the other third of the watershed comprises urban environments and agriculture, primary sources of water pollution in the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay alike. Given that large-scale shifts in land use are unlikely to change in the next few years, it is essential that Potomac River decision makers lean heavily on the funding and implementation of further BMPs across the watershed to reduce the effects these land uses can have on our waterways and aquatic habitats.
