The term water­shed refers to the region or area of land that all drains into the same river or stream. Howard County’s water­shed plan­ning and man­age­ment includes all of the activ­i­ties related to pre­serv­ing, pro­tect­ing and restor­ing the streams, wet­lands, forests and other nat­ural resources within the com­mu­nity and is the frame­work for much of our envi­ron­men­tal projects. Howard County lies within the water­sheds of two major trib­u­taries to the Chesa­peake Bay, the Patux­ent and Pat­ap­sco Rivers.

Rivers and Water­sheds
The Major Water­shed Map shows the nine major water­sheds in the County – find out which water­shed you live in and then dis­cover ways to help pro­tect our water­ways below.

The Stormwa­ter Man­age­ment Divi­sion within the Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works Bureau of Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices con­ducts bio­log­i­cal water qual­ity mon­i­tor­ing and stream cor­ri­dor assess­ment sur­veys in all of the major County watersheds.

The County devel­oped a Water­shed Restora­tion Action Strat­egy (WRAS) for the Lit­tle Patux­ent River in 2002 and for the Lower Pat­ap­sco River in 2006. The WRAS is intended to be a work plan to restore and pro­tect water qual­ity and habi­tat, and address the needs for envi­ron­men­tal out­reach and edu­ca­tion within the water­shed. Sub-watershed stud­ies were con­ducted as part of each WRAS to pro­vide more detailed restora­tion assess­ments for the Sucker Branch and Rock­burn Branch sub-watersheds and the Wilde Lake and Cen­ten­nial Lake sub-watersheds.

As part of the process for devel­op­ing water­shed restora­tion plans, infor­ma­tion must be col­lected about exist­ing water qual­ity and habi­tat con­di­tions. The County has con­ducted stream cor­ri­dor assess­ment sur­veys and bio­log­i­cal water qual­ity mon­i­tor­ing in all of the major County water­sheds. The full stream cor­ri­dor assess­ment and bio­log­i­cal mon­i­tor­ing reports are avail­able on the Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works, Stormwa­ter Man­age­ment Divi­sion webpage.

Find ways to vol­un­teer your time help­ing our water­ways:
Howard County Con­ser­vancy
The Friends of Pat­ap­sco Val­ley Her­itage Green Way
Patux­ent River­keeper
Chesa­peake Bay Research Reserves
Alliance for the Chesa­peake Bay Cit­i­zen Mon­i­tor­ing Program

Apply for a grant to help your com­mu­nity pro­tect water resources:
Chesa­peake Bay Trust