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? 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? This map shows one set of watershed boundaries in
the continental United States; these are known as 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

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

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

9. Why are watersheds important? the streamflow and the water quality of a river are affected by
things, human-induced or not, happening in the land area "above" the river-outflow 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, Evaporation, Transportation, Storage, Water use by people.
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?
Soil Characterists, Soil Saturation, Land Cover, 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 ...
Transpiration
6. Irrigation 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.
White Oak River Basin.
1)

The New River subbasin in the largest and most populated of the White
Oak River Basin

2)

Draws its name from the White Oak River, which is 48-mile river.

3)

Forest and wetlandsboth privately and publicly ownedcover almost

half the basin.
2

4)

It has 140, 104 acres of estuary.

5) The bight is characterized by its unique landforms of barrier islands,

marshes, riverine wetlands, pocosins, longleaf pine savannas and other
coastal ecosystems
6) aesthetic, cultural, biological and recreational attributes
7) Several rare and endangered animals are found in the White Oak River
Basin
8) Due to persistent overgrowth of algae in the New River in 1991, the
state classified the headwaters of the New River, Southwest Creek and
Northeast Creek as nutrient sensitive waters
9) There are 6 counties within the river basin
10)

As of 2010 the population is 336, 210.