Purpose
The goal of this project was to summarize limiting factors that are limiting the health of watersheds. This report fulfills the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board's legislative mandate to establish priorities that will help guide funding decisions in line with OWEB's mission to achieve healthy watersheds and sustainable communities. A decision making process for establishing priorities will necessarily involve additional factors such as cost effectiveness, willing partners and opportunities for partnerships.
The OWEB project aimed to summarize limiting factor* information at the fifth field HUC scale in a consistent manner across the state. The 5th field HUC scale was used in the Walla Walla and Klamath Subbasins. For the Lake, Harney, and Owyhee Watershed Council areas data is very limited and therefore the information was summarized at the fourth field HUC scale. These reports represents a summary of the information available at the time the reports were completed and should be revisited and updated as additional information becomes available.
(*Limiting factor in this context is used broadly to refer to physical factors in the environment that preclude the achievement of water quality goals, fish and wildlife habitat, or sustainable water and soil resources.)
Walla Walla and Klamath Watershed Council Areas
Information on watershed health indicators was summarized at the 5th field HUC scale for the Klamath and Walla Walla basins. Each watershed health indicator (e.g., water quality) was rated based on established criteria (see link below for the criteria). The ratings for each watershed were developed from a review of watershed assessments and other information (e.g., water quality monitoring reports) that documented aquatic, riparian, wetland, and upland conditions. The watershed health indicator rating and supporting information was entered into a database. The database is accessed through a Google map interface. The map interface provides the following information for all 5th field HUCs within each of the basins:
1) Rating of the Watershed Health Indicator: Limiting, Moderate, Adequate, or Insufficient information.
2) Rationale: The rationale, based on the available watershed assessment or other documentation, for the watershed health rating determination.
3) References: The information sources used to develop the watershed health indicator rating as cited in the rationale
Database Access
Please click here to access the Klamath database via a web map interface.
Please click here to access the Walla Walla database via a web map interface.
Lake County, Harney County and Owyhee River Basin Watershed Council Areas
Natural resource information is limited in these largely desert environments making the rating approach as used in other subbasins in the state infeasible. Instead ready sources of information on limiting factors were summarized at the 4th field HUC scale. Major sources of information were broad scale ecosytem assessments such as the ODFW Oregon Conservation Strategy, ODFW Oregon Native Fish Status Report and limited data sources such as the BLM Proper Functioning Condition database. The summaries also drew on local watershed assessments and direct input from the watershed councils on limiting factors. The reports completed here are considered a synopisis of infomration at this point in time and can readily be updated by the watershed councils as additional information becomes available.
Report Links
Links to pdf report files.
Lake County Watershed Council Area Watershed Health Indicators, June 2009
Owyhee River Basin Watershed Health Indicators, June 2009
Harney County Watershed Council Area Watershed Health Indicators, June 2009
Supporting Files
| Link | Description | type |
| HUC Table | Tables of 4th and 5th field HUCS by Watershed Group | xls |
Watershed Health Indicators organized by system: Aquatic, Riparian/Freshwater Wetland, Upland. |
xls |
Watershed Group Base Maps
Other Maps