Watershed management is the process of guiding and organizing the use of Water, land, Forest and other resources in a watershed to provide desired basic needs / goods and services without adversely affecting natural resources. Each project under the watershed programme is a micro-level effort to achieve this objective by treating the under arable or non arable land and taking up allied activities for the benefit of the landless and resource poor. The watershed programme adopt a common strategy of multi resource assessment, development and management involving all stakeholders within the watershed who, together as a group, co-operatively identify the resource issues and concerns of the watershed as well as develop and implement a watershed plan with solutions that are environmentally, socially and economically sustainable.

There are various books and papers addressing watershed management or some aspect. A good start at the University level would be taking a few suitable courses land and resource inventory and management including hydrology, soils, geology, vegetation, land uses, etc. Your country, landowners, resource agencies, and communities may have their own ideas or suggested direction. Basically all life to varying degrees depends on the soil, water and air. There is probably no cookbook on how to start, but after some literature review and inventory of conditions, one might proceed. One of our uploaded papers was on the Hydrologic Condition of Indian Creek. It’s not really an example of watershed management, but may give you some idea on some of the factors to assemble. Resource inventories and data assemblage often lead to storing data into a GIS format. How the watershed is managed can affect the water quantity and quality, which in turn can affect the types of resources and uses it can support. Various land uses and associated activities can also influence water, so identifying some best practices and if needed regulations can be helpful to achieve overriding societal goals. But it is not unusual to find conditions of past historical land and resource abuse where watershed conditions are poor or less than desired. Reestablishing acceptable watershed conditions is sometimes difficult and costly to achieve. That is why developing a watershed management plan can be very important to identify current conditions and help determine if protection, constrained management (rules, regulations, BMPs, etc.) and/or improvement measures are needed. As suggested by Dr. Singh, assembling stakeholders for involvement is preferable, but one should also consider in areas of critical water supply and a past history of water use and land ownership, one may need to work to diffuse issues with appropriate meeting management skills.

The systematic process of planning and management of basins is to make a biophysical diagnosis having water as a strategic resource interrelated with other resources, then micro-basins must be prioritized to choose the most important ones according to an evaluation of various biophysical and socioeconomic aspects, and finally propose a management plan with projects and programs, which must be executed by seeking national or international financing sources. In addition, it is necessary to manage the execution of the management plan. Throughout the process, the participation of the inhabitants who are users of the basin's resources is important.