Watershed Introduction

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Watershed Introduction
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What is a Watershed?

• An area of land, from ridge top to ridge top,
  that collects, stores, and releases water to a
  common point, such as a river or a lake

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Portland Area Watersheds
Clackamas Columbia Sandy Tualatin Willamette
Lower Middle
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Whats in a Watershed?

• Streams
• Rivers
• Lakes
• Wetlands
• Hills
• Mountains

• Farms
• Cities
• Houses
• Humans
• Animals
• Plants

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Human Impacts on Watershed

• Land Use
• Pollution
• Too much of a good thing
• Point Sources
• Non-Point Sources
• Erosion
• Natural
• Human-accelerated

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Urban Runoff

• Runoff from
• Streets
• Parking lots
• Roofs
• Driveways
• Lawns

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Erosion
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Watershed Functions

• COLLECT
• STORE
• RELEASE

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Watershed COLLECT

• Geology
• Mountains, valleys, etc
• Vegetation
• Interception
• Manmade surfaces

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Watershed STORE

• Wetlands, Lakes, Reservoirs
• Soil
• Groundwater
• Snow and Ice
• Biology

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Watershed RELEASE

• Streams and Rivers
• Groundwater
• Evaporation
• Human Engineering

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4 Dimensions to streams/rivers

• Longitudinal
• Lateral
• Vertical
• Temporal/seasonal

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Watershed Sciences

• Geo sciences
• Hydrology
• Chemistry
• Biology
• Ecology

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Geomorphology

• Physical shape
• Parent material
• Soils

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Hydrology
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Chemistry

• Most water quality parameters are chemical
  measurements
• Nutrients
• Temperature, pH, DO, etc

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Biology

• Bacteria
• Algae
• Plants
• Animals

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Ecology

• Terrestrial
• Riparian and Upland Vegetation
• Animals
• Aquatic
• Habitat (pools, LWD, etc)
• Vegetation
• Animals

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How do we study a Watershed?
If our sampling site is at the red dot on the
stream, the water we are testing could have
interacted with any of the watershed area
upstream of that point.
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Clackamas Watershed
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Clark County Watersheds
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Sandy Watershed
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Tualatin Watershed
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Lower Willamette Watershed
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Middle Willamette Watershed
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