‘Sprawl’-the cancer-like spread of development from urban centers out into the countryside-is one of our most serious and influential environmental concerns. Approaches such as ‘smart growth’ or ‘new urbanism’ are often heralded as means to adapt to sprawl. Yet given the serious impacts that development can inflict upon watershed functionality and health, most literature on watershed management has been strangely silent on the topic. Introduction to Watershed Development: Understanding and Managing the Impacts of Sprawl presents a logical framework to measure, minimize, and manage the problem of development from a viewpoint of understanding the responses of watersheds and their inhabitants to this stress. The book is the author’s distinctive and extremely well-informed perspective, culled from his many years of scientific research, environmental scholarship, professional consulting, and academic teaching.