In a recent EPA-funded evaluation on the status of hydrologic restoration in Wisconsin, WWA staff collaborated with UW Extension Evaluation Specialists, WDNR, the WI Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP), and others to look at the benefits, barriers, and opportunities associated with increasing state and local investments in watershed-scale wetland and floodplain restoration.
With survey and focus group input from dozens of professionals with relevant technical, policy, and program expertise, we found strong support for increasing wetland and floodplain restoration to help address Wisconsin’s water management challenges. We also found that Wisconsin’s current conservation policies and programs are not structured to support watershed-scale hydrologic restoration work and identified multiple actions that could help address these shortcomings.
These findings will help guide WWA’s actions moving forward and have already led to a new collaboration with DATCP focused on increasing eligibility for and implementation of wetland practices in agricultural landscapes.
Learn more about the findings with this presentation from WWA’s Erin O’Brien at the 2021 Wetland Science Conference:
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