What's a Watershed?
According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, a watershed is a region or area bounded peripherally by a divide and draining ultimately to a particular watercourse or body of water. It is an area of land that captures snow and water, divide that keeps flowing waters apart. When excess water is created during rainfalls or snow melts, a watershed carries the excess water from land and little by little, the water is directed into soils, groundwater, marshes, creeks, steams, rivers and eventually into lakes and sea.
Watersheds can be used as the natural basis for adminstrative regions. In Alberta, major watersheds are stewarded by 11 non-profit organisations called “Watershed Planning and Advisory Councils” or WPACs [1] as shown in the map alongside. On an international level, Canada and the United States of America established the International Joint Commission [2] in 1909 to jointly manage shared waters (e.g. the Columbia River [3]).
Sources
- Government of Alberta, n.d., Watershed Planning and Advisory Councils. https://www.alberta.ca/watershed-planning-and-advisory-councils. Accessed 2024-02-28.
- International Joint Commission, n.d., Role of the IJC. https://ijc.org/en/who/role. Accessed 2024-02-28.
- International Joint Commission, n.d., Columbia River. https://ijc.org/en/watersheds/columbia. Accessed 2024-02-28.
