Mohawk Watershed Symposium, Abstracts and program

Community driven projects

The Mohawk Watershed is a unique and distinctive drainage basin that has major tributaries that empty the Adirondacks to the north and the Catskill Mountains to the south. The main trunk of the river occupies a natural topographic gap in the Appalachian mountain chain, which provides a unique and distinctive link between Atlantic and the interior of the continent. This aspect of the geography of the river played a crucial role in the westward expansion by early settlers and eventually was the primary reason the Erie Canal was positioned, in part, along the spine of this key waterway. The mission of the Mohawk River Basin Program is to act as coordinator of basin-wide activities related to conserving, preserving, and restoring the environmental quality of the Mohawk River and its watershed, while managing the resource for a sustainable future. Vital to the success of the program is the involvement of stakeholders and partnerships with established programs and organizations throughout the basin. An important emerging consensus is that integrated watershed management is the key to our future success. Ecosystem Based Management is a clear and explicit guiding principal that now appears to be integrated and fully woven into the fabric of our future direction. With the NYS Department of State’s decision to support the Mohawk River Watershed Coalition of Conservation Districts’ proposal to implement a Comprehensive Watershed Management Plan for the Mohawk Basin.