Upper Monocacy River
Watershed Characterization


The Monocacy River is tributary of the Potomac River that drains to the Chesapeake Bay and then to the Atlantic Ocean. The Monocacy River watershed covers 966 square miles in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Maryland divides its portion of the Monocacy River watershed into three “8-digit” watersheds, the Upper Monocacy, the Lower Monocacy and Double Pipe Creek. About 204 square miles of the Upper Monocacy River watershed is in Frederick County, Maryland. Frederick County is receiving Federal grant funding to prepare a Watershed Restoration Action Strategy (WRAS) for their portion of the Upper Monocacy River Watershed. The WRAS project area covers over 30% of Frederick County’s total jurisdiction.

As part of WRAS project, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is providing technical assistance, including preparation of a watershed characterization (compilation of available water quality and natural resources information and identification of issues), a stream corridor assessment (uses field data to catalog issues and rate severity) and a synoptic survey (analyzes benthic macroinvertebrates, fish and water samples with focus on nutrients). The County will consider the information generated in these efforts as it drafts the County Watershed Restoration Action Strategy.

Note: (Documents are in PDF format and require Adobe Acrobat Reader which can be downloaded free from http://www.adobe.com)