What is a land area that drains to a body of water?

Author: Jett Reinger  |  Last update: Friday, November 7, 2025

A watershed is an area of land that drains all of its water to a specific lake or river. As rainwater and melting snow run downhill, they carry sediment and other materials into our streams, lakes, wetlands and groundwater.

What is the area of land that drains into a body of water?

A watershed is an area of land that drains or “sheds” water into a specific waterbody. Every body of water has a watershed. Watersheds drain rainfall and snowmelt into streams and rivers. These smaller bodies of water flow into larger ones, including lakes, bays, and oceans.

What is the area of land that all of the water drains called?

Definition: Watershed is the land area that drains into a stream or other waterbody.

What is an area of land over which water flows called?

A watershed is simply the land that water flows across or through on its way to a common stream, river, or lake. A watershed can be very large (e.g. draining thousands of square miles to a major river or lake or the ocean), or very small, such as a 20-acre watershed that drains to a pond.

What is a drainage basin called?

The size of a watershed (also called a drainage basin or catchment) is defined on several scales—referred to as its Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUC)—based on the geography that is most relevant to its specific area. A watershed can be small, such as a modest inland lake or a single county.

What Is Groundwater?

What is a synonym for drainage basin?

synonyms: basin, catchment area, catchment basin, drainage area, river basin, watershed.

What is the area drained by rivers?

A drainage basin is the area of land around the river that is drained by the river and its tributaries close tributaryA small river that joins the main river channel..

What is a land area that divides the flow of water?

The word "watershed" is sometimes used interchangeably with drainage basin or catchment. Ridges and hills that separate two watersheds are called the drainage divide. The watershed consists of surface water--lakes, streams, reservoirs, and wetlands--and all the underlying groundwater.

What is the area of land drained by this river and its tributaries is best described as the river's?

Flexi Says: The area of land drained by a river and its tributaries is best described as the river's watershed.

What is land next to water called?

Littoral land is a term used to refer to land that is located next to a pooled body of water. Littoral land includes land that is situated next to a lake, ocean, or sea. The term stands in contrast to riparian land, which is any land located next to flowing waterways like a river or stream.

What is land drainage area?

A drainage district is a legally established area of land that drains to a common outlet. Drainage district boundaries are determined by the natural topography of the land and rarely correspond to political boundaries such as townships or counties.

What is a large area of land that is drained by a river?

A watershed is an entire river system—an area drained by a river and its tributaries. It is sometimes called a drainage basin.

What is a trench for water called?

A ditch is a small to moderate trench created to channel water. A ditch can be used for drainage, to drain water from low-lying areas, alongside roadways or fields, or to channel water from a more distant source for plant irrigation.

What is the area of land where all of the water that drains off of it goes into the same place a river stream or lake?

A watershed is simply the area of land that catches rain and snow and drains or seeps into a marsh, stream, river, lake or groundwater.

What is an area of land that is covered by water?

A wetland is an area of land that is either covered by water or saturated with water.

What is a watershed for kids?

A watershed is a system of water that all comes together. For example, when it rains, you can often see little streams of water running along a street gutter or across a parking lot. These flow into larger streams and finally into puddles or sewage pipes or maybe even into a real stream or river.

What is the area of land that drains into a river?

A watershed is an area of land that drains all the streams and rainfall to a common outlet such as the outflow of a reservoir, mouth of a bay, or any point along a stream channel.

What is land area drained by a river system?

A watershed, also called a drainage basin or catchment, is an area drained by a river and its tributaries.

What is an area of land that is drained by a single river quizlet?

The region drained by a single river system is called the drainage basin and is bounded by an imaginary line called the divide.

What is an area where land meets water?

Riparian areas are where water and land meet. Streams, rivers, ponds, springs, and lakes always have zone of green plants growing near the water. That's the riparian area. The plants in riparian areas don't mind living in wet soil.

What is an area of land whose water drains to the same place?

A watershed is an area of land that channels rainfall, snowmelt, and runoff into a common body of water. The term “watershed” is often used interchangeably with “drainage basin,” which may make the concept easier to visualize.

What separates land and water?

A boundary that separates ocean water from the land is called the shore line.

What is the drainage area of a river?

A drainage basin is an area of land where water from rain or snow melt drains downhill into a body of water such as a river, lake, wetland or ocean. The drainage basin includes both the streams and rivers that convey the water as well as the land surface from which water drains into those channels.

What is area of land drained by a given river and its branches?

Background A watershed, also called a catchment, basin or drainage, is an area of land drained by a river and its tributaries to a common outlet, which may be a closed basin, a larger stream, a lake, wetland, estuary or an ocean.

What is the largest catchment area in the world?

The Amazon Basin, in northern South America, is the largest in the world. The Amazon River and all of its tributaries drain an area of more than 7 million square kilometers (about 3 million square miles). The main river and all its tributaries that drain an area form a river basin or the catchment area.

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