Sustainability

Ag101. This brief overview of U.S. agriculture covers the primary commodities and the methods of producing them.

Chesapeake Bay Program. The Bay Program partners include the states of Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia; the District of Columbia; the Chesapeake Bay Commission, a tri-state legislative body; EPA, representing the federal government; and citizen advisory groups.

Cooperative Conservation. EPA has a long tradition of cooperative conservation, with more than 80 voluntary partnership programs with businesses, communities, state and local governments, and other organizations to enable flexible, collaborative, market-driven solutions that can deliver measurable environmental results.

Cooperative Conservation America: Action Stories. This site serves as a public forum for collecting and sharing the cooperative conservation stories, lessons, models, and achievements of all Americans; citizens can share stories about cooperative conservation projects through an online nomination form.

Cooperative Water Program. This partnership joins the U.S. Geological Service with 1,400 non-federal agencies for joint funding of water resources projects throughout the U.S.

Delaware River Basin Water Plan. This site describes the 30-year strategic plan for protecting water resources in the Delaware River Basin.

Economics of Sustainability: Watersheds. This online EPA Watershed Academy module contains issue papers on seven topics relevant to socioeconomic aspects of watershed sustainability.

Geographically-Focused Programs. Thirteen EPA programs focus on particular U.S. geographic areas, often with a focus on water.

Great Lakes. EPA works with nine other federal agencies in the Great Lakes Task Force and also with relevant states and cities to restore and protect the Great Lakes, the world's largest surface freshwater system.

Growth and Water Resources. This distance-learning training module on EPA's Watershed Academy site explains how changes in land use affect water resources and presents national data on trends in land development that have created challenges for achieving water quality standards.

Gulf of Mexico Program. This program facilitates collaborative actions to protect, maintain, and restore the health and productivity of the Gulf of Mexico in ways consistent with the economic well-being of the surrounding region.

National Estuary Program. Congress established this program in 1987 to improve the quality of estuaries of national importance.

Roundtable on Sustainable Forests. Individuals, federal and state agencies, and national organizations committed to sustainable forest management participate in this roundtable, which receives support from USDA's Forest Service.

Sustainable Agriculture. This site provides links to publications related to sustainable agriculture from the National Agriculture Compliance Assistance.

Sustainable Water Infrastructure. This site highlights the "Four Pillars of Sustainable Infrastructure" – Better Management, Full-Cost Pricing, Water Efficiency, and Watershed Approaches to Protection.

Source Water Protection. Preventing drinking water contamination at the source – streams, rivers, lakes, and underground aquifers – usually requires the combined efforts of many partners such as public water systems, communities, resource managers, and the public.

Targeted Watershed Grants Program (TWG). This program promotes successful community-based approaches and management techniques to protect and restore the nation's waters.

Urban Non-Point Source Controls for Water. This site provides a list of EPA and other resources for information on non-point source controls for water.

Water 2025.This Department of the Interior initiative helps western states to manage scarce water resources and to develop partnerships to nourish a healthy environment and sustain a vibrant economy.

Water Conservation at EPA. Recognizing the importance of responsibly managing our water resources, EPA is incorporating water management activities at its facilities.

Water Efficiency. This site presents an overview of EPA's water efficiency program, which focuses especially on municipal water use.

Water Quality Trading. Under favorable circumstances, trading of water quality can be a powerful tool for reducing the cost and time required for achieving pollutant reductions faster and at lower cost.

Wetlands. Wetlands are areas such as swamps, marshes, and bogs whose soil is saturated with water during much or all of the year.