What is the largest watershed in the United States?

The largest watershed in the United States is the Mississippi River Watershed, which drains 1.15 million square miles (2,981,076 square kilometers) from all or parts of 31 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces stretching from the Rockies to the Appalachians!

What is the largest watershed in US?

Description: The Mississippi River is the largest drainage basin in the United States and the second-longest river in North America. It is also the 15^th largest river by discharge in the world. This schematic map of the Mississippi and its major tributaries shows the extent of this watershed.

What is the major drainage system in the United States?

The Mississippi River has the third largest drainage basin in the world, exceeded in size only by the watersheds of the Amazon and Congo Rivers. It drains 41 percent of the 48 contiguous states of the United States.

How do humans impact the largest watershed in the United States?

People have a significant influence on waters within the watershed by establishing reservoirs and redirection streams. Waterways, as well as freshwater, are frequently affected by variations within ground covering and human usage. The pesticides used in commercial farming flow over the ground and damaged rivers.

What is a large watershed called?

Also called a “catchment” or “drainage basin” a watershed can cover a large, multi-state area like the Columbia River watershed or a relatively small area, such as the Amazon Creek basin. Larger watersheds are made up of numerous smaller watersheds, which are then called sub-watersheds or sub-basins.

Geography Facts: Mississippi Watershed

What are the 5 major watersheds?

Lawrence basin, the Pacific basin, the Arctic basin, the Hudson Bay basin, and the Great Basin. Together, the principal basins span the continent with the exception of numerous smaller endorheic basins.

Is the largest watershed 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 more than 7 million square kilometers (about 3 million square miles).

How many major watersheds are in the United States?

There are 78 major river basins, or watersheds, in the lower 48 states. As water moves from the sky to the land to the ocean it travels overland and through the ground in bounded basins called watersheds.

What is the largest watershed system in the United States that covers most of the continent and includes several other large river tributaries?

The Mississippi River watershed is the biggest watershed in the United States, draining more than three million square kilometers (one million square miles) of land. The Mississippi River watershed stretches from the Appalachian Mountains in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west.

What is the biggest threat to watersheds?

Stormwater runoff is the #1 pollution threat to our lakes!

Runoff happens when we build roads, houses, lawns and driveways. These impermeable surfaces do not absorb rain. Stormwater runoff picks up pollutants such as soil, fertilizers, pesticides, manure, and petroleum products. Even common soil is a pollutant.

Which country has the best drainage system in the world?

Singapore: Singapore is a global leader in water management and wastewater treatment. The country has invested heavily in its wastewater infrastructure, and its sewage treatment plants are some of the most advanced in the world. Singapore also has some of the strictest water quality standards in the world.

Which river has the largest watershed?

The Great Lakes Basin

The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin is the single largest watershed in the world, ranging from Trois-Rivières, Québec to beyond the western point of Lake Superior. It contains more than 20% of the world's supply of surface fresh water and about 84% of North America's surface fresh water.

What is the largest drainage area in the world?

The five largest river basins (by area), from largest to smallest, are those of the Amazon (7M km²), the Congo (4M km²), the Nile (3.4M km²), the Mississippi (3.22M km²), and the Río de la Plata (3.17M km²).

Why is watershed called watershed?

But, the word was originally a geographical term describing the area from which water sources drain into a single river or a ridge, like that formed by a chain of mountains, which sends water to two different rivers on either side. From that, watershed came to mean a turning point or dividing line in life.

What river runs through 31 states?

The Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 31 U.S. states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky Mountains and Appalachian Mountains. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth-longest and ninth-largest river in the world by discharge.

How big is the American river watershed?

American River Watershed - This watershed covers 2,140 square miles from Sacramento to the peaks of the northern Sierra Nevada mountains west of Lake Tahoe. Areas outside of the watershed that are served by Study Partners with American River water are also included in the Study Area.

Why is the Mississippi so big?

Around 60 million years ago, the Mississippi was collecting water from the Rockies to the Appalachians; by four million years ago, its watershed had extended into Canada, and the Mississippi had grown to an enormous size, carrying four to eight times as much water as it does today, Cox and colleagues have found.

What is the largest watershed in the US that covers 31 states and about a third of the total area of the United States?

Mississippi River watershed or basin

The river basin drains 41% of the country's water from all or part of the 31 states. In addition, the Mississippi is the third-longest river in the world, flowing 2,340 (3,770 km) miles from its source in Lake Itasca in northwestern Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.

How many watersheds are in the continental United States?

Watersheds come in all shapes and sizes. They cross county, state, and national boundaries. In the continental US, there are 2,110 watersheds; including Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico, there are 2,267 watersheds.

What are the 5 largest rivers in the watershed?

Does everyone in the US live in a watershed?

Every inch of the United States is part of a watershed – in other words, all land drains into a lake, river, stream or other water body and directly affects its quality. Because we all live on the land, we all live in a watershed — thus watershed condition is important to everyone.

Is the Chesapeake Bay the largest watershed in the United States?

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States and is one of the most productive bodies of water in the world. The Chesapeake watershed spans 165,759 square kilometers, covering parts of six states — Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

What is the longest river in the world?

Nile, Africa

The longest river in the world is the Nile, stretching about 6650 kilometres (4,132 miles). The river runs through northern Africa across 10 countries, starting from Uganda and ending in Egypt into the Mediterranean Sea.

What is the largest drainage basin in Europe?

The longest river in Europe, the Volga in Russia, is also the cornerstone of the continent's largest river basin, draining into the Caspian Sea.