wa·ter·shed: 1) the land area drained by a particular river, stream or creek; 2) a dividing range between two drainages;
3) a drainage basin or area that discharges its surface water through one outlet or mouth.

In this brochure: What is a watershed? What is a healthy watershed? Why care about our watersheds? Which watershed do you live in? Why not join a watershed group?

Water’s Journey Through A Watershed

What is a Watershed?
We all live, work and play in a watershed. Watersheds provide water for drinking, irrigation, agriculture, industry, boating, fishing and swimming, and home for a vast array of plants and wildlife. A healthy watershed is vital for a healthy environment and a healthy economy.

A typical watershed is a drainage area whose boundary is defined by ridgetops, where water falling onto the ridge flows by gravity to a creek or river. Watersheds come in all shapes and sizes. The largest in Western Shasta County is the Sacramento River watershed, which begins at Mt. Shasta and flows to the ocean at San Francisco. Although the river begins as a trickle, it gets larger as water flows into it from dozens of smaller creeks, such as Clear Creek, Cow Creek and Cottonwood Creek. Each of these creeks is also in its own watershed, and the watersheds flowing directly into the Sacramento are what this brochure is about.

If you hike up to the ridgetop of a watershed, in Clear Creek for example, you will see smaller creeks, called tributaries, flowing into Clear Creek. These tributaries are also called sub-watersheds, such as Dog Gulch, Orofino Gulch, Paige Boulder Creek, Kanaka Creek, and Stony Gulch. A watershed may be small enough to have only an intermittent stream, but it takes the combined volume of water from each tributary and creek to create a river as great as the Sacramento.

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