What's a Watershed?

Introduction
This cool mountain stream in
Maryland is the drain for all the
precipitation that fell on its
watershed. Photo courtesy of USDA
Natural Resources Conservation
Service

Another name for watershed is drainage basin and another name for basin is sink. A sink
can serve as a highly simplified model of a watershed: water that falls anywhere within a sink
will move downhill to its drain. Similarly, rain or snow that falls anywhere within a watershed
will move downhill to a single place that drains the whole watershed, usually a river.

In this activity, you'll build a physical model of a watershed. Once you've worked with the
physical model, you'll use Google Earth to explore watersheds in the US and Quito.

Keeping Track of What You Learn

In these pages, you'll find two kinds of questions.
● Checking In questions are intended to keep you focused on key concepts. They allow
you to check if the material is making sense. These questions are often accompanied by
hints or answers to let you know if you are on the right track.
● Stop and Think questions are intended to help your assess your understanding of the
key concepts and skills. These questions require you to pull some concepts together or
apply your knowledge in a new situation.
What's a Watershed?
Part A: Make a Watershed Model
You can do this lab in small groups, working together, though everyone must submit a full set
of responses to the assignment.

Collect these Materials

Each group needs these materials:

● Large aluminium roasting pan or paint tray

● 6 to 10 pages of newspaper
● Masking Tape
● Sheet of white plastic, slightly larger than the pan (a trash compactor bag cut into single
sheet works well)
● Spray bottle
● Blue food colouring
● Absorbent cloth or paper towels
● 2 different colours of permanent markers
● Blocks of wood or a notebook to lift one end of the tray

Make your Model

You'll use these materials to make a very simple model of a portion of Earth's surface. You'll
spray model rain on your landscape and watch how it flows so you can identify watersheds
and drainage divides that separate them.
1. Crumble several pieces of newspaper into balls and rolls of different sizes and shapes.
Place them into your roasting pan or paint tray. Use tape to keep them in place.
2. Lay your plastic bag out flat on a table top or the floor and smooth out the wrinkles.
3. Place one end of the pan on wood blocks or a notebook, then cover the entire pan and
its contents with the plastic. Gently press the plastic down around the crumpled paper
balls. Leave the excess plastic around the outside of the box to protect the area from
getting wet.
4. The plastic cover represents Earth's surface. The lumps represent mountains and hills,
and the areas between them represent valleys. Use your imagination to visualise your
model as a portion of Earth's surface.
5. Fill your spray bottle with water and add a few drops of blue
food colouring to make the water easy to see. Spray just
enough rain over your model to see how the water interacts
with your model landscape.
6. Look for these features in your model. (see image, right, for a
sample of how the model will look)
o Streams or Rivers—linear flows of water running downhill;
o Ponds or Lakes—areas where water pools up in low areas;
o Drainage divides—imaginary lines along which the "rain"
goes to one side or another.
7. Use your cloth or paper towels to absorb the water from your
model. Adjust the paper balls and plastic to make your
landscape as realistic as you can, then spray it with model rain
again.
8. When you think you can predict the locations of streams and drainage divides on a
model landscape, wipe your plastic dry and set up the model again. Use markers to draw
your predictions for the locations of streams and divides directly on the plastic.
9. Pair up with another lab group and test each groups' predictions about the location of
their streams and divides. Discuss the results and your ideas for improving the model.
An additional challenge:
● Use an Internet search engine to find diagrams or images that show dendritic, trellis,
radial, rectangular, and/or parallel drainage patterns.
● Use newspaper or other materials to produce model landscapes with one or more of
these types of watersheds.
● Consider what type of geologic structures would result in each type of drainage. Follow
up your model-building by finding examples and information on different drainage
patterns.

Stop and Think

How well does the model represent reality for the concept of watersheds and drainage divides?
What is a Watershed?
Part B: Explore Your Watershed in Google Earth
Now that you have made a model watershed, you can check out real watersheds of the USA
and explore those where we live around Quito.

Start Google Earth on your Computer

1. If your computer doesn't have Google Earth installed, download and install the free
program. Access the Google Earth download page then download and install the free
version of Google Earth for your operating system.
2. Launch Google Earth by double-clicking its icon or choosing it from the Programs list
under the Start menu.
3. In Google Earth's menu panel on the left, under the Layers list, check the box in front of
Borders and Labels to turn this layer on.
4. Minimize your Google Earth program and return to your Internet browser to access
watershed data.

Download outlines of the watersheds of the United States

1. Go to the EDNA-Derived Watershed Atlas Home Page. EDNA

Homepage (https://edna.usgs.gov/watersheds/index.htm) There you will see two
choices: one for HTML and one for KML. Start with the HTML site.
(https://edna.usgs.gov/watersheds/html_index.htm)
2. On the interactive EDNA HTML map page, place your cursor (but don't click) over the
names in the text list of watersheds to highlight them on the map. Be sure to take a look
at the extent and location of the Colorado, Missouri, Ohio, and Mississippi watersheds.

Checking In
o How is it that the Mississippi watershed encompasses several other
smaller watersheds?
Rivers of the smaller watersheds all empty into the Mississippi River.
Every place within the Mississippi watershed eventually flows down the
Mississippi River. Major tributary rivers that flow into the Mississippi are
considered as separate watersheds within the Mississippi system.
3. On the interactive watersheds page, click the link above the map to switch to the KML
page to download and view a Google Earth file of the US Watersheds.
(https://edna.usgs.gov/watersheds/kml_index.htm)
4. On this page, you can download individual watershed maps or a map of the entire United
States. Click anywhere on the map graphic to download the .kml file that outlines
watersheds of the contiguous United States. Note that .kml stands for Keyhole Markup
Language—this is one of the file extensions for Google Earth files. This large file may
take a few minutes to download; save it in a place where you can find it again.
5. Re-launch to Google Earth. If necessary, open USWatersheds.kml by choosing File >
Open and browsing to the location where you saved the file. To make returning to this
file easier, you can save it to your "My Places" folder.

Find a watershed and download additional data for it

Google Earth displaying the landcover layer for
the Trinity Watershed in Texas.

1. In the Search field at the upper

left, enter a city and state name then
click the magnifying glass. Google
Earth will fly to your city and zoom in.
2. Zoom out from the city until you see your entire watershed outlined in red. Click the
green circle with blue lines that shows next to the name of your watershed.
3. Inside the dialog box that opens, click the "View the _____ watershed" link. This action
directs your computer to download additional information for your watershed. Be
patient: it usually takes a minute or more to download these data, and there is no
evidence of anything happening while you wait.
4. When you see an overlay on the map showing a landcover image over your watershed,
the data layers have been downloaded. Scroll to the bottom of your Layers list in Google
Earth to find a new folder with your watershed's name.

Explore the watershed

Several sample images from the EDNA server can be viewed using the images linked in the
hidden below.

1. In Google Earth, in the Layers panel, click the small triangular arrow that points to the
Watershed Layers folder; this will expand the folder so you can see all the data layers
available to you.
o The "Watersheds Characteristics" layer shows a button on the map that gives you
access to Web pages about the watershed. Deselect this layer during your Google
Earth exploration.
o Expand the sub-folders for Landcover, Population, and Streams and turn separate
layers on and off. Use the legends to interpret the colors on the map.
o Examine the relationships among the layers. Click the name of a layer in the Layers
list and use the transparency slider just below the list to see through your
highlighted layer.
2. After some exploration, turn on your Elevation layer and make sure it is not transparent.
Turn landcover and population images off. In the stream layer, turn on the largest
 streams—the ones that have the highest values for CMS (cubic meters per second).
Sequentially add the smaller streams by clicking the boxes for streams of decreasing
size. Note the patterns that develop as you add the smaller streams that are tributaries
to the larger rivers.
3. Turn the smaller stream layers on and off to help you visualize the location of drainage
divides within your watershed. Compare a zoomed in view of the smallest streams to
what you saw in your physical watershed model.
4. Return to the interactive EDNA HTML page, click on a watershed of interest, and go to
that watershed's page of informational links. Click the Dams link to see the types and
locations of dams that have been built to keep water from running downhill.
5. Go back to your Google Earth map and turn off all Elevation, Landcover, and Population
images. Leave all stream layers on. Zoom in to one of the larger streams to check out
one or more of the dam sites shown in the online graphic.
6. Turn on the Terrain layer at the bottom of the Layers list and use Google Earth's tilt and
zoom features for further exploration.
7. Choose another watershed in a different part of the contiguous United States. Access the
data layers for it and explore them to compare that watershed to the first one you
researched.

Stop and Think - ASSIGNMENT 1

1. Starting at the largest river in the watershed around Quito, use the tilt and zoom features
of Google Earth to "fly" upstream along smaller and smaller tributaries. What differences do
you see in the landscape, land cover, and population densities near the area’s
largest streams compared to its smallest tributaries? 

2. Write a description of the Quito watershed. Include information about the shape of the
land and how the land is used. What purposes do the dams in the watershed serve?
Indicate how the population density of the area has changed. Use screenshots of
different views in your Google Earth map to support or illustrate your description. 

3.  Conflicts between nations over water usage are becoming commonplace. An example at
present is the conflict between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia as a result of Ethiopia building the
$4bn Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam across the upper reaches of the Nile. Research the
reasons for Ethiopia to be building the dam and then research how the dam may
affect Egypt.

4. In places where rivers are designated as a political boundary between two adjacent states
or countries, the two entities may have disputes about the river. For instance, they might
argue about which one has the right to use the water or set rules about what waste products
can be discharged into the river. Briefly discuss some advantages and disadvantages
of using drainage divides rather than rivers as political boundaries. 

Stop and Think - ASSIGNMENT 2

Create a visual document which gives descriptions or definitions for all the
different terms, words and phrases which you have found in this worksheet and
used in this lab. Add photos of the lab or images from your internet research.

This document can then be used as your learning resource.