Tennessee has abundant water resources critical to supporting human health and a thriving economy.Those resources include more than 60,000 miles of streams,500,000 lake acres and groundwater.The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation,Division of Water Resources is responsible for protecting and restoring Tennessees waters and ensuring Tennesseans have safe drinking water.The Division takes a Watershed Management Approach to these responsibilities.The watershed approach,implemented 20 years ago,is a successful and evolving management tool as our understanding of contaminants such as nutrients,metals,pharmaceuticals and personal care products and other pollutants continues to grow.Integrated management is critical to implementing Tennessees Nutrient Reduction Framework and other protection and restoration mechanisms.Managing surface water,groundwater and drinking water holistically is yielding improvements in how Tennessee approaches water quality protection and restoration from both technical and efficiency perspectives.