What a long strange trip it's been - or - Who took the synthesis out of analysis?

As originally conceived, watershed analysis is a synthesis of information that focuses on issues important to a particular watershed in the context of larger eco-scape scales. Some practitioners of watershed analysis have ascended a steep and unfamiliar learning curve of synthesizing between disciplines and agencies and addressing ecosystem issues at a large scale. Yet, after two years of interagency watershed analysis, many analysis products show little evidence of synthesis having taken place. The implication? "Watershed analysis" was never done. What was done was "watershed characterization". What went wrong? Comparing the original steps in watershed analysis and their underlying philosophy (Reid and McCammon, 1993) with the current counterparts (REO, 1995) reveals that synthesis often has been deferred to give disciplines a familiar free rein to strut their stuff (Table 1). In this review, we will first revisit steps in watershed analysis according to the original version and then briefly discuss what we believe have been fatal departures taken by many watershed analyses. Other series of steps may lead to effective watershed analyses, but the original version serves as an example of how synthesis can be incorporated throughout.