The SCDNR's Key Strategic Challenges

• Continuing water-related issues dominate headlines with increasing political attention. As the water resource planning agency for the state, the SCDNR is responsible for monitoring and analyzing water resource information and developing state water plans. The ability of the Agency to conduct these activities has been compromised following recent budget reductions. These reductions could not be coming at a more inappropriate time, considering the ongoing issues related to water resources:
  
  
  1. the lawsuit between South and North Carolina over diverting water from the Catawba River;
  2. low lake levels in the Savannah River Basin that has caught the attention of both South Carolina and Georgia residents;
  3. recent court decisions that make it more likely that Atlanta will be looking to the Savannah lakes as a primary source of water;
  4. the state of Georgia's initiation of a multi-year comprehensive state water planning process;
  5. the SC General Assembly's consideration of a new Surface Water Withdrawal Permitting Program; and
  6. the growing interest among the public to ask the legislature to designate more rivers as State Scenic Rivers.
     
     
• Sustaining fisheries through a renewed federal commitment requires enhanced monitoring and management diligence from the Agency. South Carolina is a member of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which operates under a congressionally approved federal compact for interstate cooperation on fisheries. The Commission develops and adopts, and the states implement, fishery management plans to ensure the long-term sustainability of marine fishery resources. These plans contain specific provisions which require monitoring and stewardship by South Carolina and other states. Failure to comply with provisions of Commission mandated fishery management plans risk the closure of South Carolina fisheries by the US Secretary of Commerce.
• Continuing drought conditions have affected all or part of the state for much of the past 10 years with many environmental and economic impacts such as widespread timber losses from fire and diseases, agricultural disasters, diminished groundwater supplies, and record low lake levels and streamflows. Notwithstanding the current economic climate, the state needs to be better prepared to monitor, document, and analyze weather conditions in order to provide timely and coordinated responses to drought and other severe weather events such as hurricanes and floods, and to predict future climate change impacts to the state.
• Increasing population expansion into rural areas that have, in many cases, contributed to a lack of understanding of the Agency's mission and objectives. Lacking a rural background, many new residents often fail to understand the need for wildlife conservation, game management, and shooting sports. This failure to understand the Agency's mission and objectives could eventually jeopardize the state's quality of life, its economic competitiveness, and the $30 billion and 230,000 jobs associated with its natural resources.

SCDNR- By The Numbers FY-2009-2010

By the numbers, Products and Services include, but are not limited to: