Measuring environmental sustainability of water in watersheds

Environmental sustainability assessment is a rapidly growing field where measures of sustainability are used within an assessment framework to evaluate and compare alternative actions. Here we argue for the importance of evaluating environmental sustainability of water at the watershed scale. We review existing frameworks in brief before reviewing watershed-relevant measures in more detail. While existing measures are diverse, overlapping, and interdependent, certain attributes that are important for watersheds are poorly represented, including spatial explicitness and the effect of natural watershed components, such as rivers. Most studies focus on one or a few measures, but a complete assessment will require use of many existing measures, as well as, perhaps, new ones. Increased awareness of the broad dimensions of environmental sustainability as applied to water management should encourage integration of existing approaches into a unified assessment framework appropriate for watersheds.