Contributions of watershed management research to ecosystem-based management in the Colorado River Basin

The Rocky Mountains and Southwestern United States, essentially the Colorado River Basin, have been the focus of a wide range of research efforts to learn more about the effects of natural and human induced disturbances on the functioning, processes, and components of the regions's ecosystems. Watershed research, spearheaded by the USDA Forest Service and its cooperators, leads to a better understanding of the regions's ecology, and to the formulation of management guidelines to meet the increasing needs of people living in these regions and throughout the Western United States. This paper presents pertinent details of watershed research, that has been accomplished in the Colorado River Basin two regions and to provides highlights of the research results.