Understanding Human Uses and Values in Watershed Analysis

Watershed analysis is used as a tool to understand the functioning of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem processes at the landscape scale and to assess opportunities to restore or improve those processes and associated watershed conditions. Assessing those opportunities correctly requires an understanding of how humans have interacted with the watershed in the past and how they likely will interact with the watershed in the future. This paper provides a systematic approach to developing relevant information about human interaction with a watershed. The approach was originally developed as a technical supplement to the Federal process for watershed analysis. This document does not address American Indian traditional cultural and religious issues in depth; those are to be discussed in a separate technical supplement.