1. Basinwide flood control/waffle project

there are additional unquantified economic benefits associated with avoided flood damage to smaller communities, agricultural land, rural infrastructure (i.e., roads and culverts), and farmsteads. The results of this study indicate that the Waffle concept is a viable means of mitigating damage from large springtime floods. The Waffle approach is particularly effective as a means of intercepting, controlling, and reducing overland runoff and, as such, offers an excellent augment to on-channel dams, dikes, or diversions, which address channel flow, not overland runoff. And unlike conventional structural measures, the Waffle approach does not entail implementing drastic structural measures to intercept, retain, or divert large volumes of water in order to achieve flood mitigation benefits-instead minor structural modifications are made to existing culverts to retain precipitation primarily where it falls on the landscape. In addition, by controlling and temporarily storing overland runoff, the Waffle approach offers several ancillary benefits, including reduced sediment erosion from the landscape and within waterways and increased soil moisture and groundwater recharge during dry years. The Waffle approach not only provides a significant augment to conventional flood mitigation measures, but it would help to safeguard those areas with limited or no flood protection measures, such as agricultural lands, farmsteads, smaller communities, and rural infrastructure. Because the Waffle concept need not be implemented on a basinwide scale to provide local benefits, it allows for flexibility with implementation guidelines and policies, which can be developed to best suit the needs of participants and beneficiaries within a particular region. In addition, implementation of the concept on a subwatershed-by-subwatershed basis with a focus on local damage mitigation may facilitate realization of the concept throughout the entire RRB. In addition to establishing the viability of the Waffle concept, this project developed several water management tools that will benefit stakeholders for decades to come, including the first comprehensive hydraulic/hydrologic model of the entire RRB. These models can be used to investigate the effects of a variety of structural and non structural flood mitigation practices and/or land management practices on water quantity and water quality throughout the RRB. Given the history of severe and frequent flooding in the region, a basinwide flood mitigation approach like the Waffle is needed to provide long-term security from floods and, in turn, the economic vitality of the region. The results of this study have shown that coordinated basinwide water management is viable, and the Waffle concept is a marvelous example of an approach available for implementation.