Habitat assessment is an important form of management for species conservat
ion, mitigation planning, environmental regulation, and impact assessment.
As part of an American Fisheries Society and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
project, we surveyed state, provincial, federal, and private organizations
to obtain documentation about methods being used to assess,aquatic habitat
s in the inland waters;of North America. We then used this information to c
haracterize attributes of established methods. We found that most methods t
arget habitats;associated with flowing waters, but a significant number of
methods deal exclusively with lakes and reservoirs. The survey showed that
the dominant purpose for having an established method was to standardize me
asurements and data collection techniques. Methods for stream habitats incl
uded a wide array of measurements emphasizing channel structure, water move
ment, substrate, cover, and riparian zones. The lentic habitat methods emph
asized the littoral zone, hallow-water physical structure, and riparian are
as. Data. analyses were primarily numerical summaries and calculations of d
escriptive;statistics usually presented using databases, Assessment methods
focused on aquatic environmental quality-more so than fishery resource eva
luations-although methods associated with fishery investigations remain pro
minent. The overall characteristics of currently used methods suggest that
many dr most: agencies are actively advancing their practices, and rapid ch
ange can be expected in most methods.