What are forested watersheds?
Forested watersheds are nature’s water purification facilities. Forest watersheds are the source of clean drinking water for over 180 million people in the United States. Unfortunately, the future of this natural source of high quality water that southerners enjoy and depend on is threatened.
What is in a watershed?
A watershed is the area of land where all of the water that drains off of it goes into the same place—a river, stream or lake. The smallest watersheds are the drainage areas for small streams and lakes. Think about your local creek or river.
What is a watershed nature?
A healthy watershed is one in which natural land cover supports: dynamic hydrologic. and geomorphologic. processes within their natural range of variation, habitat of sufficient size and connectivity to support native aquatic and riparian.
What happens when water interacts with forested land in a watershed?
Forested watersheds reduce storm runoff, stabilize streambanks, shade surface water, cycle nutrients, and filter pollutants. Consequently, the quality of this water is typically the best in the Nation (Brown and Binkley 1994).
How do forests help watersheds?
How are Forests Important to the Watershed? Forests play an important role in watershed health by providing certain benefits summarized below. Trees intercept rainfall in their canopy, reducing the amount of rain that reaches the ground. A portion of this captured rainwater evaporates from tree surfaces.
How do forest serve as watershed?
Forested landscapes have two main water resource functions, related to the quantity and quality of water available for our use. First, during heavy rain events, forests can reduce the amount of surface runoff into streams, rivers, and other water bodies, and slow the rate at which the water flows through the watershed.
What is the edge of a watershed called?
Boundary. The boundary of the watershed is the outer edge of the divide, basin, and collection area. The boundary divides one watershed from a neighboring watershed.
What is the relationship between forest and water?
2. Forests are intimately linked to rainfall and water availability. Forests play a large role in regulating fluxes of atmospheric moisture and rainfall patterns over land. Earth’s land and ocean surfaces release water vapor to the atmosphere.
How do forests affect water quality and quantity?
Role of forests in water health It gets cleaner because the soil filters out substances such as mercury, pesticides and other pollutants. The forest cover slows down erosion and delays the release of water into streams, helping stabilize the quality and quantity of water in the area.
How can we protect watersheds?
Conserve water every day. Take shorter showers, fix leaks & turn off the water when not in use. Don’t pour toxic household chemicals down the drain; take them to a hazardous waste center. Use hardy plants that require little or no watering, fertilizers or pesticides in your yard.
What is a watershed?
English Language Learners Definition of watershed : a time when an important change happens : a line of hills or mountains from which rivers drain : a ridge between two rivers : the area of land that includes a particular river or lake and all the rivers, streams, etc., that flow into it
Is water from forested watersheds good for the environment?
Water draining from undisturbed forested watersheds is generally of the highest quality, particularly with regard to beneficial uses including drinking water, aquatic habitat for native species, and contact recreation.
How does the water flow through a watershed?
Watersheds drain rainfall and snowmelt into streams and rivers. These smaller bodies of water flow into larger ones, including lakes, bays, and oceans. Gravity helps to guide the path that water takes across the landscape. Not all rain or snow that falls on a watershed flows out in this way.
Are watersheds protected?
Not all watersheds are protected. Nearby the Bull Run, is the Clackamas River Watershed. This watershed provides critical habitat to endangered fish and supplies drinking water to over 300,000 people.