The river basin, made up of 16 subwatersheds, drains an area of about . Most of the upper half of the basin lies within the rugged Mount Hood National Forest, managed by the U.S. Forest Service, while most of the lower watershed, partly agricultural and more heavily populated, is privately owned. Private timber companies own some of the land between the national forest and the lower watershed, and some of it is public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Roughly 72 percent of the watershed is on public land; 25 percent is private, and 3 percent is owned by Native American tribes. The watershed's estimated population in 1995 was 63,702.