Excessive sediment deposition is a detrimental problem in streams and rivers worldwide. Under Canada’s National Agri-Environmental Standards Initiative, we are working to determine appropriate geomorphic indicators for the development of deposited sediment standards for streams draining agricultural lands. In 16 New Brunswick streams, we examined the relationship between watershed land cover (0.7 – 83 % agriculture) and various geomorphic parameters commonly used to characterize deposited sediment in streams: % embeddedness, % fines in riffle cores, % surficial fines from pebble counts, and several estimates of sediment central tendency. Percent fines (< 2 mm from riffle cores), median particle size (from pebble counts) and geometric mean (from pebble counts) were significantly correlated to percentage agriculture (P < 0.05). However, only percent fines in riffles showed a moderately strong relationship (R² = 0.59) with land cover.  The weak relationship between land cover and both embeddedness and pebble count % fines is of interest because many governmental agencies and watershed organizations use these criteria to characterize deposited sediment in streams. These results suggest that % fines from riffle cores may be a more useful indicator of stream degradation and, ultimately, could be a better predictor of good quality habitat for stream benthos.