What is a Watershed Webquest?

Name:

Access the following link and answer the questions:

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watershed.html

1. What is a watershed? is the area of land where all of the water that falls in it and drains off

of it goes to a common outlet

2. Watersheds can vary in size. True/False

True

3. What type of watershed is shown in the map? National 8-digit hydrologic units (watersheds).

4. The word watershed is sometimes used interchangeably with drainage basin or catchment.

5. Ridges and hills that separate two watersheds are called the drainage divide.

6. What does watershed consist of? surface water--lakes, streams, reservoirs, and wetlands--

and all the underlying ground water

7. Larger watersheds contain many smaller watersheds. It all depends on the outflow point.

8. What is the outflow point? all of the land that drains water to the outflow point is the

watershed for that outflow location

9. Why are watersheds important? because the streamflow and the water quality of a river are

affected by things, human-induced or not, happening in the land area "above" the riveroutflow point.
A Watershed is a precipitation collector:
1. Name 6 factors that determine how much of the streamflow will flow by the monitoring site?

Precipitation
Infiltration
Soil characteristics
Land cover
Slope of the land
2. What is the greatest factor controlling streamflow? Precipitation

3. The amount of water that will infiltrate (soak in over time) depends on which four characteristics?
Infiltration, Land Cover, Soil Characteristics, Slope of land
4. Water from rainfall returns to the atmosphere largely through Evaporation.

5. The root systems of plants absorb water from the surrounding soil in various amounts through the
process of Transporation.

6. Reservoirs store water and increase the amount of water that evaporates and infiltrates.

River Basins of N.C.:

http://wwweenorthcarolina.org/riverbasins-interactive.html
Choose one of the NC. River Basins and list out 10 facts about the one you
investigate. Also include one picture that best represents a main feature of
the River Basin.
Little Tennessee River basin
-flows north into North Carolina from Georgia
2

-The concrete dam that impounds Fontana Lake is the highest in the eastern
United States at 480 feet.
-The Little Tennessee River flows into the Tennessee River at Lenoir City,
Tennessee and it eventually flows to the Gulf of Mexico
-More than half the land in the basin is publicly owned, and 89 percent of the
land is forested.
-Most of the basins population lives in and around Franklin, Sylva and
Cherokee, a reservation that is home to the entire Eastern Band of Cherokee
Indians, which numbers more than 13,000.
-The upper Little Tennessee River meanders through pastures and farmland
before reaching Emory Dam below Franklin.
-. In the 25 miles downstream of Lake Emory, the river bends from north to
west, becoming rocky, swift and wild as it rushes between the Cowee and
Nantahala mountains through the Little Tennessee River Gorge
-Numerous picturesque gorges are found through - out the river basin.
-The Cullasaja Gorge on the National Forest Scenic Byway is a spectacular
sight with several waterfalls visible from the road.
-The Tuckasegee River originates in Panthertown Valley, which has been
called the Yosemite of the East.