DEFINITIONS

Drainage Basin:  A large watershed encompassing the watersheds of many smaller rivers and streams and draining to a major river, estuary or lake.

Watershed: The land area from which surface runoff drains into a particular stream channel, lake, reservoir, or other body of water.

Sub-watershed: The land area draining to the point where two smaller streams combine together to form a larger, single stream.

Catchment: The smallest watershed area, usually defined as the area that drains an individual site, such as a school or small neighborhood, to its first intersection with a stream.

TO DO

Have students create their own watershed (Appendix 2), and/or invite GSWA staff to your classroom to demonstrate point and non-point source pollution with our 2'x4' watershed model.

A watershed is any area of land that drains into a common water body such as a marsh, swamp, stream, river, lake, or groundwater. Each watershed is separated from other watersheds by high points in the terrain, such as hills and ridges. A watershed includes not only the water body or waterway itself, but also the entire land area that drains into it. A watershed may be very small, like the drainage formed by your own driveway, or very large, like the drainage basin of the Mississippi or Nile rivers. Depending on the size of a watershed, it may be referred to as a drainage basin, watershed, or sub-watershed.

All land--including our neighborhoods, commercial and industrial areas, our forests and parklands--is in one watershed or another. Each watershed is a dynamic and unique place, where our natural resources, such as soil, water, air, plants, and animals, interact in a complex web. Yet everyday activities can impact these resources, ultimately affecting our own health, well-being and economic livelihood.

In New Jersey, the Department of Environmental Protection has begun to monitor and manage our natural resources on a watershed basis. The state has been divided up into 20 Watershed Management Areas (WMAs). The Great Swamp watershed is considered a sub-watershed of Watershed Management Area 6 which includes the Upper Passaic, Rockaway and Whippany rivers.

Source: NJ DEP

Copyright 2000. Great Swamp Watershed Association.