Sustaining watersheds through preservation practice

Abstract

Advocates for historic preservation, such as Richard Moe and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, are currently engaged in a campaign to remake preservation as a leader in the sustainability movement. Sustainable watershed management is a major component of this movement, and it is also closely tied to historic preservation insomuch as watershed health and preservation are both primarily controlled by land-use issues. As such, this thesis will examine the intersection of historic preservation and watershed management through an analysis of the ways in which a variety of preservation practices relate to and contribute to healthy water systems. The goal of this research is to identify some of the partnerships between preservation and conservation, as concern watersheds, and to establish the importance of these partnerships for sustaining both communities and the planet as a whole.