In cooperation with several federal and state agencies, the Information Center for the Environment (ICE) at the University of California Davis is analyzing the ability to cross-reference information linked to California's hydrography dataset (a modified form of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's River Reach File) to the new National Hydrography Dataset. California's Reach File contains a critical but non-standard foreign key that is essential to many research applications. Additionally, ICE plans to test, verify, and recommend enhancements to cross-referencing methods to improve the transfer of reach-code information from earlier hydrography datasets in California to the NHD.

The Information Center for the Environment (ICE), UC Davis, is currently developing a decision support system to facilitate watershed analyses by state resource agencies in California. ICE is using the latest in ESRI GIS to provide resource managers critical environmental data, including a desktop application with embedded GIS to facilitate watershed analysis. This tool incorporates readily available GIS data such as biotic occurrences and distributions, hydrography and geomorphology. Other relevant data are task specific, such as staff reports, water quality matrices, and site location photographs. The approach used is adaptable to assessing a broad array of conservation priorities in natural resource management.