Capacity building means establishing resources needed to fulfill a mission or achieve a goal. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recognizes that watershed groups and local governments need a range of tools to effectively manage their local land and water resources. Local and state governments and watershed groups around the nation are employing innovative approaches to capacity building.

In an effort to provide another resource and tool to assist watershed groups and local governments as they build organizations that have strong foundations of adequate resources and technical tools, the EPA developed the State/EPA Nonpoint Source Partnership. The Capacity Building and Funding Workgroup has set out to help watershed organizations build strong foundations for managing nonpoint source pollution at the watershed scale. 

• Building Capacity for Nonpoint Source Management (PDF)(61 pp, 1 MB, September 2003)