In 1968 Congress passed the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to preserve the free-flowing nature and special values of some of our most precious waterways. Presently there are 208 national wild and scenic rivers in 39 States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, totaling more than 12,700 miles (as of October 2015). To better manage these rivers, the four primary federal agencies with responsibility for the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System (the
United States Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service) developed an interagency geodatabase that includes information about each river and river segment; such as the river name, classification, list of responsible agencies, outstandingly remarkable values, as well as links to documents and web pages. The mission of the wild and scenic rivers science base community is to maintain the interagency geodatabase with current up-to-date information and to share this information with other river managers and the general public.
