Santee Watershed Case Study

I was trying to do my post based on the water pollution lab, however, the link would not open for me. Instead I did the lab with the cool google earth application and started doing research on the Santee Watershed in SC. This Watershed is home to, you guessed it, the Santee river. The Santee river is the second largest on the east coast weighing in (not really) at 228.8 km running from the Northwestern side of the state down and out the Atlantic on the Southeastern side. Data from this lab shows that in 2001 the forest acres across the state was 53.1% which is down from 65.7% in 1992. This 10% change may not seem like a lot but that is roughly 1% per year. I would have liked to seen data for 2011 or this year to see if that trend has dropped …show more content…
The Google Earth Pro "Watershed Characteristics" for Santee show that the dams in this area are primarily used for recreation. 80% to be exact in 2001. I can only imagine that this number may have slightly increased since then, but I hope I'm wrong considering the cost of dams. Habitat alteration is a huge factor that can have ripple effects on the environment and this directly affects aquatic environments such as fisheries. Equally important in my mind is the benefits of not having a dam in place like natural flooding. I'm sure when we hear the word flooding we think of recent places affected by flooding like New Orleans and Houston to name a couple. However, a little bit of flooding is actually good for these watersheds, providing nutrients through the dispersment of sediment. Overall I think that dams hurt more than they help, especially if the main use (80%) is only for recreation. I would like to see some of the dams dismantled in my state or see them repurposed for the use of hydroelectricity, which by the way was listed as on 4% of the dams in Santee in 2001. 80% vs 4% for recreation vs. hydroelectricity? I was confused when I read