Value of Watershed Studies in the Development of Land-Management Practices

Watershed-scale experimental studies are an effective method for evaluating aquatic ecosystem response to land management practices.  These types of studies have been influential in development of environmental management policy in North America.  Focusing research effort at a location enables collection of sufficient information to comprehensively assess how combinations of management actions affect the physical, chemical and biological attributes of a system.  Over the last decade a number of watershed scale studies in the Pacific Northwest have been established to assess the impact of current forest management prescriptions on streams.  The results from these studies are just now becoming available and promise to be valuable in informing regulatory discussion about forest management in the region. However, several challenges associated with these studies remain.  Very few watershed studies have an explicit adaptive management framework; there is no formal process for incorporating results into management decisions.  Also, improved tools to extend the results of studies to other locations are needed.  Models, watershed classification tools and better integration of watershed studies with regional status and trends monitoring could help in this regard.  Nonetheless, this study design remains a highly effective approach for untangling the complex relationships controlling aquatic ecosystem response to land management practices.