Integrated planning and management approaches, including bioregional planning and integrated water resources planning, are comprehensive strategies that strive to balance the sustainability of natural resources and the integrity of ecosystem processes with human development and activities. Implementation of integrated plans and programs remains complicated. However, geospatial technologies, such as geographic information systems and remote sensing, can significantly enhance planning and management processes.
Through a United States Environmental Protection Agency Region 8 Wetland Program Development Grant, a high-resolution land cover dataset, with a primary emphasis on mapping and quantifying impervious surfaces, was developed for three watershed sub-basins in northern Utah - Lower Bear-Malad, Lower Weber, and Jordan - to support integrated water resources planning and management. This high-resolution land cover dataset can serve as an indicator of cumulative stress from urbanization; it can support the development of ecologically relevant metrics that can be integrated into watershed health and wetland condition assessments; it can provide general assessments of watershed condition; and it can support the identification of sites in need of restoration and protection
