Integrated catchment management

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Integrated catchment management is an approach to environmental planning that approaches sustainable resource management from a catchment perspective, rather than a piecemeal approach that artificially separates land management from water management. Integrated catchment management recognises the existence of ecosystems, and the need to understand the role of those ecosystems as habitat for flora and fauna. Integrated catchment management seeks to take into accoutn complex relationships within those ecosystems: between flora and fauna, between geology and hydrology, between soils and the biosphere, and between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Integrated catchment management recognises the cyclic nature of processes within an ecosystem, and values scientific and technical information for understanding and analysing the natural world.^[1]

[edit] References

1. ^ Manaaki Whenua Conference 1999 Proceedings: Integrated catchment management rediscovered: an essential tool for a new millennium, William (Breck) Bowden, Landcare Research