Abusive grazing of riparian areas was once justified as a collateral cost for obtaining upland forage utilization and maximizing rangeland profit potential. Fifty years later, prescription grazing (controlling grazing animals to achieve a specified conservation objective) is a USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service approved practice for maintaining or improving water quality and quantity. The questions then become: 1) Are grazing prescriptions effective, and 2) How can the success or failure of the prescriptions be measured? Aerial surveys were flown in 2004 and 2006 to acquire 2-cm ground surface distance (GSD) imagery over the Rock Creek watershed, Elko County, Nevada. Prescribed grazing began in 2003 to promote habitat recovery for the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout, a species listed as threatened under provisions of the US Endangered Species Act. Between surveys, the watershed experienced three major wildfires burning approximately 200,000 acres. In 2006, there was above average precipitation, whereas the preceding years of the study were within a 5-year sequence of drought. Approximately 170 km of stream were surveyed in September of each sampling year and each stream was sampled at 100-m intervals (intermittent imagery). Eight hundred four images were acquired in 2004, and 1011 were acquired in 2006. A comparison of 2004 and 2006 images revealed:  1) wider riparian areas in 2006; 2) no change or a significant increase in riparian vegetation in most streams; 3) fire-related decreases in willow cover in one stream; and 4) willow canopy diameters increased 55%. The increase in willow canopy diameter is consistent with changes expected under reduced grazing on riparian areas. That and other changes detected are evidence of the utility of 2-cm GSD imagery and associated image-analyses tools for detecting and measuring important indicators of change that can be attributed to management and/or weather.