Delaware River Watershed Initiative

An ambitious effort is underway to protect and restore the Delaware River Basin’s water quality and overall ecological health. Kick-started by a $35 million commitment by the William Penn Foundation, the Delaware River Watershed Initiative (DRWI) is targeting eight “clusters” within the basin for conservation investment. More than 50 leading nonprofits have joined together, aligning priorities for land protection and restoration projects and assessing water quality impacts using standardized methods. Clusters were delineated using landscape variables including land use, conservation easements, and land trust areas in addition to input from local nonprofits. Monitoring sites in each cluster were chosen based on how representative of the cluster’s landscape they were. These sites represent the “typical” conditions of each cluster. The diversity of the landscape in each cluster influenced the number of sites, and they represent a range of watershed sizes (9-313 km2). Monitoring for the DRWI began in 2013 and will continue through at least 2020. Chemical, algae, fish, and macroinvertebrate data are collected at each of the sites. Chemistry data are collected quarterly and the biotic community data are collected semiannually. To capture potentially subtle changes over time in biotic communities, biological community sampling methods are quantitative, with identification to the lowest possible taxonomic level. These data are collected by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University and Stroud Water Research Center.