Greater emphasis has been placed on monitoring and management of headwaters.  However, little is known regarding the condition of headwater streams as historical emphasis has been placed on larger, perennial reaches.  Our objective was to characterize the condition of intermittent, headwater catchments in eastern South Dakota.  First order catchments were delineated using the NHDPlus database to yield a total population of 2,849 watersheds within the Northern Glaciated Plains ecoregion.  Watersheds ranged from 1.0 to 5.4 km^-2 with average slopes of 0% to 17.3% and stream drainage densities of 0.03 to 3.6m km^-2 .  GIS layers of population density, elevation, slope, stream flowlines, land cover, precipitation and roads were used to calculate metrics of landscape condition.  Land use was primarily agricultural (mean = 75%) while natural grassland comprised an average of less than 25% of watershed area.  Riparian zones within 120m of the stream channel averaged 71% agricultural land.  Modeled nitrogen loads ranged from 0.3 to 8.5 kg ha^-1 yr^-1 while phosphorus loads ranged from 0.05 to 2.3 kg ha^-1 yr^-1.  Indicators of urban stressors were generally not significant.  Results of this analysis were used to delineate candidate reference sites for future monitoring within the Northern Glaciated Plains ecoregion.