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7 based on the riparian doctrine (Table A-1 in Lamb and Bayha 1978). The doctrine equates the existence of a water right with ownership of the land adjacent to the stream (riparian ownership), and each owner has an equal right to reasonable use of the water in the stream (Gould 1977). Depletions of both supply and quality of the water must not prevent downstream users from exercising their reasonable rights to use of the water (Lamb and Bayha 1978). The riparian doctrine is substantially different from the appropriation doctrine of most western states which accommodates offstream uses of water to promote economic development. Both the abundance of water (and, consequently, the absence of significant offstream use for irrigation) and the existence of the riparian doctrine account for the relatively brief history of the instream flow issue in the East. As in the West, assessment of instream flow requirements in the East was initially associated with controlling the operation of hydroelectric facilities, and, until recently, these assessments were most likely based on historical discharge records and the judgment of biologists. In the late 1970's, methods developed in the West, particularly the Incremental Methodology, were used to assess instream flow needs below dams on the lower Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania (Jackson 1980) and in the upper Delaware River Basin in New York (Sheppard 1980). The Incremental Methodology has also been used on streams in West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee (Bayha and Hardin 1980), and North Carolina (Bain 1980). It is currently being used to survey instream flow requirements on a statewide basis in Illinois (Bayha and Hardin 1980, Herricks et al. 1980). At the same time that formal methods were being exported to the East, instream flow workshops were held. Two workshops sponsored by the Ohio River Basin Commission were held in 1979 and 1980, and an instream flow session was included in the program of the Annual Northeast Fish and Wildlife Conference in 1980 and 1981. A similar session was also included in Waterpower '81, an international conference on small hydropower held in June 1981 in Washington, D.C.