Watershed management is an adaptive, comprehensive, integrated multi-resource management planning process that seeks to balance healthy ecological, economic, and cultural/ social conditions within a watershed. Watershed management serves to integrate planning for land and water; it takes into account both ground and surface water flow, recognizing and planning for the interaction of water, plants, animals and human land use found within the physical boundaries of a watershed.
Watershed management provides a framework for integrated decision-making to help: assess the nature and status of the watershed; identify watershed issues; define and re-evaluate short and long-term objectives, actions and goals; assess benefits and costs; and implement and evaluate actions.