What's a Watershed?

A watershed is an area of land that collects water from rain or snow. The water collected in the watershed seeps into the ground or flows over the ground into rivers, streams, and lakes. We all live in a watershed!

Watersheds directly affect water quality, whether it's for drinking, recreation or wildlife habitat. Watersheds are important because the surface water features and stormwater runoff within a watershed ultimately drain to other bodies of water. It is essential to consider these downstream impacts when developing and implementing water quality protection and restoration actions. Everything upstream ends up downstream.

Imagine all of the rain that falls up on those steep mountains in the distance... When water hits a steep surface, there is only one way for it to go: downhill! Gravity pulls water downhill as fast as it can taking the easiest path it can find. This water (including melted snow) eventually comes together (runoff) to form small streams which meet other streams further down and so forth until a river is formed. Where is it going you may ask? Well some of it seeps into the ground to form groundwater, some is used by people and animals then recycled, but most of it flows until it reaches sea level, which is usually the ocean, but also may be a large lake.

Throughout a river's journey to the ocean, it flows through a landscape that is rich in diverse land uses from lush forests and deserts to farmland, cities and manufacturing plants. Each of these environments has an impact on the river's health. In natural environments like forests, trees and other plants build up on the river banks, dropping leaves, logs and other organic debris into the water. This provides nutrients to feed other organisms as well as hiding places for creatures to live in.

What's my watershed?

Not sure which watershed you live in?

Explore your watershed with the Kentucky Watershed Viewer.

You can also use Google Maps to locate your home and the nearest body of water.

Can you find the primary waterbody that stormwater and stormwater runoff will flow to in your watershed? Zoom out on the map. Can you follow this waterbody to the water it flows into? How far can you trace the water? What types of environments does the water flow through?