Watersheds
© Shutterstock Watersheds Featured Image
Often also referred to as a “drainage basin,” a watershed is a region of land where rainfall and snowmelt drains into a stream, lake, or river system.
Watersheds provide both a level of organization for landscapes and a scale for understanding their natural hydrological patterns. By extension, they also form an extremely useful unit for organizing human activities and managing lands as well as waters.
Featured Watersheds
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© Rob Sheppard (Apalachicola River Basin Featured Image)
Apalachicola River Basin
Though it faces threats from afar, the Apalachicola River Basin is a national hotspot of biodiversity with well over 1,000 native plants and animals and numerous endemic species that exist only in this region.
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© Jack Looney (Clinch River Valley Featured Image)
Clinch River Valley
The nation's leading hotspot of aquatic diversity lies amidst the ancient Appalachian ridges of southwest Virginia's Clinch River Valley, where the fast-flowing Clinch and Powell rivers provide habitat for dozens of rare fish and mussels.
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