A watershed is controlled by the geology that forms it. Minerals weather from the rock to form soil; precipitation falls on the soil to provide the basis for life. Some precipitation percolates into the rock beneath the soil. Some will resurface as springs. The remainder recharges the watertable. Some precipitation remains on the surface to evaporate or run off. What runs off forms the streams, lakes, and wetlands that support aquatic life. In its travels down the watershed, runoff picks up soil particles and transports them to new locations. It dissolves minerals to provide nutrients to aquatic life along the way. Together soil and water are the foundation that supports all life in the watershed.

Life in the watershed begins with the microorganisms at the bottom of the food chain. The diversity and number of these organisms dictate the health and robustness of the watershed. An ecosystem with low diversity in the bottom of the food chain is weak, subject to disease and insects, and unable to withstand the extremes in normal climatic fluctuations. Conversely, robustness in the lower food chain supports variety and health in the higher organisms throughout the food chain. Water provides a conveyance mechanism for the lower organisms to insure diversity throughout the watershed.

Vascular plants support most of the uses and activities in a watershed. They provide habitat and food for wildlife, shade and forage for livestock, and timber and fuelwood. Landowners and managers manage ecosystems for these and other uses. Healthy, robust, properly functioning watersheds can support a full variety of carefully planned uses and activities.

THE WATERSHED CONCEPT in management is just that - Conceptual.

At the turn of the previous century Watershed Management referred to management of a landscape for the primary purpose of delivering clean water to municipalities. Later in the century, as environmental awareness and understanding of ecosystem interactions improved, watershed management evolved to recognize that any action in a watershed eventually affected everything else in the watershed. As the idea has gained popularity Watershed Management has come to have various meanings depending on who is using the term.

The Watershed Management Concept subscribed to by Lahontan Consulting is an integrated ecosystem approach that utilizes the watershed as the fundimental lanscape unit for analysis of Resources, Uses, Activities, and Values - and humans are part of the ecosystem.

One of the strengths of using watersheds as a unit of analysis is that a watershed can be any size and you are always in one. Therefore, it is beneficial to focus on an area you can zoom into (so to speak) or where extensive analysis is appropriate you can zoom out. While all federal agencies and some state are deliniating 6 levels of standardized watershed bounaries to use these arbitarily would greatly dilute the usefulness of watersheds for analysis purposes. Predeliniated watersheds could be used as a starting point but it makes more sense to identify the contributing watershed at the start of a project and absolutly necessary when doing instream work.

Activity plans are not necessarily done on a watershed basis. For example, pastures and padocks do not have their fencelines on watershed boundaries. Most fisheries and hydrology projects would have plans to include the entire watershed.