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i At present, little data is available concerning the overall quality of small aquatic ecosystems in South Carolina. The data presented here comprises the elemental contamination results from the first two years of an ongoing study with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources of wadeable streams in South Carolina. The overall goal of this thesis is to assess overall ecosystem quality in order to provide information needed for improved management strategies. The data focus on elemental contaminants found in water and sediments in 2006 and 2007 and relationships between metals and land cover in the drainage areas or watersheds of the sites sampled. Sites were randomly selected using known streams and GIS-determined watersheds of appropriate size (less than 150 km2). GIS and the National Land Cover Data Set (NLCD) were used to determine the land use distribution for each sampled watershed. Water and sediment samples were collected and analyzed using Inductively Couple