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Watershed delineation is the process of identifying the boundary of a watershed, also referred to as a catchment, drainage basin, or river basin. It is an important step in many areas of environmental science, engineering, and management, for example to study flooding, aquatic habitat, or water pollution.
Catchment areas may be established for the provision of services. For example, a school catchment area is the geographic area from which students are eligible to attend a local school. When a facility's capacity can only service a specific volume, the catchment may be used to limit a population's ability to access services outside that area. [11]
Other terms for a drainage basin are catchment area, catchment basin, drainage area, river basin, water basin, [3] [4] and impluvium. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] In North America, they are commonly called a watershed , though in other English-speaking places, "watershed" is used only in its original sense, that of the drainage divide line.
Catchment zone in Nattai, Australia containing drinking water. Catchment hydrology is the study of hydrology in drainage basins. Catchments are areas of land where runoff collects to a specific zone. This movement is caused by water moving from areas of high energy to low energy due to the influence of gravity.
These areas can still be included in topographically defined basins if the hypothetical flow of water (or ice) over the surface of the ground (or ice sheet) is considered. For example, the Antarctic ice sheet can be divided into basins, [ 1 ] and most of Libya is included in the Mediterranean Sea basin even though almost no water from the ...
Watersheds as optimal spanning forest have been introduced by Jean Cousty et al. [12] They establish the consistency of these watersheds: they can be equivalently defined by their “catchment basins” (through a steepest descent property) or by the “dividing lines” separating these catchment basins (through the drop of water principle ...
When the response factor A can be determined from the characteristics of the watershed (catchment area), the reservoir can be used as a deterministic model or analytical model, see hydrological modelling. Otherwise, the factor A can be determined from a data record of rainfall and runoff using the method explained below under non-linear reservoir.
Another, more subtle example is the Schuylkill-Lehigh divide at Pisgah Mountain in Pennsylvania in which two minor creeks divide to flow and grow east and west respectively joining the Lehigh River and Delaware River or the Susquehanna River and Potomac River, with each tributary complex having separate outlets into the Atlantic.