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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.
Drainage basin of the Ohio River, part of the Mississippi River drainage basin. In hydrology, the drainage basin is a logical unit of focus [clarification needed] for studying the movement of water within the hydrological cycle. The process of finding a drainage boundary is referred to as watershed delineation. Finding the area and extent of a ...
Dendritic drainage: the Yarlung Tsangpo River, Tibet, seen from space: snow cover has melted in the valley system. 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 ...
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".
Watersheds of North America are large drainage basins which drain to separate oceans, seas, gulfs, or endorheic basins. There are six generally recognized hydrological continental divides which divide the continent into seven principal drainage basins spanning three oceans (Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific) and one endorheic basin
The Mississippi River is the largest drainage basin in the United States. [3] In the United States, the Mississippi drains about 41% of the country's rivers. [4] From the perspective of natural geography and hydrology, the system consists of the Mississippi River itself and its numerous natural tributaries and distributaries.
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. Hydrological classification systems assign numbers to tributaries and mainstems within a drainage basin.
The name refers metaphorically to a geological watershed, or drainage divide, which separates adjacent drainage basins. The watershed transformation treats the image it operates upon like a topographic map , with the brightness of each point representing its height, and finds the lines that run along the tops of ridges.