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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.
Stream order is an important aspect of a drainage basin. It is defined as the measure of the position of a stream in the hierarchy of streams. Tributaries are given a number one greater than that of the river or stream into which they discharge. So, for example, all immediate tributaries of the main stem are given the number "2".
The Atlantic Seaboard basin in eastern North America drains to the Atlantic Ocean; the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence basin in central and eastern North America drains to the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the Atlantic Ocean or to the Labrador Sea; the Gulf of Mexico basin in the southern United States drains to the Gulf of Mexico, a basin of the Atlantic ...
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.
A diagram of a possible river with the Strahler number of each tributary labeled. In hydrology, a stream order is a positive integer used to describe the level of river branching in a drainage basin. [18] Several systems of stream order exist, one of which is the Strahler number. In this system, the first tributaries of a river are 1st order ...
Map of major river basins. These are the major U.S. river basins in the U.S., as designated by the U.S. Water Resources Council. [1] Each of these river basins contain a number of smaller river basins.
In geomorphology, drainage systems, also known as river systems, are the patterns formed by the streams, rivers, and lakes in a particular drainage basin. They are governed by the topography of land, whether a particular region is dominated by hard or soft rocks, and the gradient of the land.
[clarification needed] Water enters the mainstem from the river's drainage basin, the land area through which the mainstem and its tributaries flow. [3] A drainage basin may also be referred to as a watershed or catchment. [3] Strahler diagram. Only a segment of the mainstem gets the highest number.