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2/ Considering the Damaged Riparian Area from a Watershed Perspective An important lesson learned from past riparian recovery efforts is the need to evaluate the condition of the damaged riparian area from a watershed per- spective that takes into consideration the uplands, upstream and downstream reaches, and tributaries. This is crucial because the structure and processes of lotic ecosystems, more than any other type of ecosystem, are determined by their connection with adjacent ecosystems. Since riparian ecosystems are in the bottomlands of a watershed, changes in how sediment and water run off of surrounding landscapes impact them most. A disturbance in any part of a watershed will create disequilibrium that will ripple through many ecosystems within the watershed, possibly influencing the condition of the watershed's riparian ecosystems for many years. Ecosystem managers must therefore avoid the myopic approach of de- veloping recovery strategies that are based solely on an evaluation of the immediate degraded riparian site. Evaluating only isolated components of a watershed (e.g., a specific stream reach) will be ecologically incomplete, often failing to provide the information needed to fully understand why the condi- tion of the riparian ecosystem has declined. The evaluation process should also be broadened from a temporal perspec- tive. Collecting information describing past conditions will provide a picture of how the riparian area has changed and some of the potential reasons for the changes. This chapter provides a checklist that covers some of the basic information that ecosystem managers should understand from the start about the damaged riparian area's watershed and the drainageway that passes through it. Al- though general in nature, the information gathered here will form the founda- tion for more detailed evaluation work that may be required when the evalua- tion process moves to focusing specifically on the degraded riparian area. This type of evaluation approach - going from a broad perspective to specifics, as well as from gathering general information to more detailed information - is being used to evaluate the condition of lower Rincon Creek, near Tucson, Arizona (case study 1).