Aquatic monitoring programs vary widely in objectives and design. However, each program faces the unifying challenge of assessing conditions and quantifying reasonable expectations for measured indicators. A common approach for setting resource expectations is to define reference conditions that represent areas of least human disturbance or most natural state of a resource characterized by the range of natural variability across a region of interest. Identification of reference sites often relies heavily on professional judgment, resulting in varying and unrepeatable methods. Standardized methods for data collection, site characterization, and reference site selection facilitate greater cooperation among assessment programs and development of assessment tools that are readily shareable and comparable. We illustrate an example that can serve the broader global monitoring community on how to create a consistent and transparent reference network for multiple stream resource agencies. We provide a case study that offers a simple example of how reference sites can be used, at the landscape level, to link upslope management practices to a specific in-channel response. We found management practices, particularly areas with high road densities, have more fine sediments than areas with fewer roads. While this example uses data from only one of the partner agencies, if data were collected in a similar manner they can be combined and create a larger, more robust dataset. We hope that this starts a dialog regarding more standardized ways through inter-agency collaborations to evaluate data. Creating more consistency in physical and biological field protocols will increase the ability to share data.

We aggregated road, vegetation, and inchannel data to assess the condition of sixth-field watersheds and describe the distribution of the condition of watersheds in the Northwest Forest Plan (the Plan) area.The assessment is based on 250 watersheds selected at random within the Plan area.The distributions of conditions are presented for watersheds and for many of the attributes that contribute to the condition of watersheds by land use allocation.Under the Plan, management activities were implemented in a way to promote positive changes in the condition of watersheds.This assessment revealed that the growth rate of trees (2 to 4 percent) exceeded losses (1.6 percent owing to stand-replacing fire and harvest), and nine times more roads were decommissioned than were constructed.Fifty-seven percent of the watersheds had higher condition scores in time 2 (1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003) than in time 1 (1990-96) across the entire Plan area.Only 3 percent of the watersheds had lower condition scores in time 2, and the scores did not change in the remainder of the watersheds.More key watersheds, which were given the highest priority for restoration activities, increased in condition than non-key watersheds.The greatest positive change in watershed condition occurred in late-successional reserves.