Many estuarine wetland scientists and managers are of the opinion that present wetland habitat assessment procedures are inadequate for application to specific geographic regions and may be too subjective to provide consistent results. The Estuarine Habitat Assessment Protocol (hereafter referred to as the Protocol) represents such an approach to assessing the function of estuarine habitats for fish and wildlife, and specifically for the Pacific Northwest region. Fish and wildlife support functions of estuarine habitats were the chosen focus of the Protocol because they have historically been the 'forcing functions' behind resource agency requirements for compensatory mitigation. Other important habitat functions, such as maintenance of water quality or flood desynchronization, should be assessed with similar rigor. The Protocol is intended to address the need for a systematic procedure that can be applied uniformly across a variety of wetland and associated nearshore habitats using objective, scientific methods.

"August 1993"--Cover. Prepared for Environmental Research Laboratory, Corvallis, Ore. Includes bibliographical references.