Identifying and Protecting Healthy Watersheds: Concepts, Assessments, and Management Approaches

Description

This document is a technical resource that provides information for assessing, identifying and protecting healthy watersheds. It provides water quality and aquatic resource scientists and managers with an overview of the Healthy Watersheds Initiative, examples of approaches for assessing components of healthy watersheds, integrated assessment options for identifying healthy watersheds, examples of management approaches, and some assessment tools and sources of data. This document summarizes the many examples from across the country of state, local government, and others efforts to assess, identify, and protect healthy watersheds by understanding their systems context. This document can assist in those efforts and also serve as a resource for other states and their partners interested in conducting healthy watersheds assessments and implementing holistic, systems-based healthy watersheds protection programs.