1/26/2024 0 Comments Water drift focus gifThen if it rained one inch, all of that rain would fall on the plastic, run downslope into gulleys and small creeks and then drain into main stream. Imagine that the whole basin is covered with a big (and strong) plastic sheet. Many factors, some listed below, determine how much of the streamflow will flow by the monitoring site. Most of the precipitation that falls within the drainage area of a stream's USGS monitoring site collects in the stream and eventually flows by the monitoring site. Watersheds are important because the streamflow and the water quality of a river are affected by things, human-induced or not, happening in the land area "above" the river-outflow point.Īnimation of water draining from neighboring basins. It all depends on the outflow point all of the land that drains water to the outflow point is the watershed for that outflow location. Larger watersheds contain many smaller watersheds. The watershed consists of surface water-lakes, streams, reservoirs, and wetlands-and all the underlying groundwater. Ridges and hills that separate two watersheds are called the drainage divide. The word "watershed" is sometimes used interchangeably with drainage basin or catchment. This map shows one set of watershed boundaries in the continental United States these are known as National hydrologic units (watersheds). Watersheds can be as small as a footprint or large enough to encompass all the land that drains water into rivers that drain into Chesapeake Bay, where it enters the Atlantic Ocean. A watershed is an area of land that drains all the streams and rainfall to a common outlet such as the outflow of a reservoir, mouth of a bay, or any point along a stream channel.
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