Paesta Podcasts

You Asked, We Answered! Transcript for the podcast We all live in a watershed – think of it as your ecological address, and no matter where you are on land, any water that falls in that same location has a drainage destination determined by elevation and landforms. A watershed is an area of land where the surface water (including lakes, streams, reservoirs, and wetlands) and the underlying groundwater flows from a higher to lower elevation. Streams and rainfall within a watershed will typically drain to a common outlet, such as the outflow of a reservoir, mouth of a bay, or any point along a stream channel. The word watershed is sometimes used interchangeably with drainage basin or catchment. Watersheds come in all shapes and sizes, and larger watersheds contain many smaller watersheds. For example, the city of Philadelphia is part of the Delaware River Watershed. Its seven main subwatersheds are the Delaware Direct, Schuylkill, Pennypack, Tookany/Tacony-Frankford, Darby-Cobbs, Poquessing and Wissahickon.