WATER:

We live on a planet that is mostly covered with water. Of course, most of that water is salty, and most of the rest is ice and snow. Less than 0.6% of earth’s water is available for humans to use. At CFWEP we study this small amount of water as if our lives depend on it – because they do!

WATERSHED:

We all live in a watershed – both downstream and upstream of people and organisms that depend on the water we use every day. A watershed is defined as an area that funnels all its water into one stream that drains the area. Watersheds, or drainage basins, are usually named for the main stream in the region, and one big watershed can be made up many smaller ones. The Silver Bow, Little Black Foot, and Warm Springs basins are in the headwaters of the Clark Fork watershed, which is a headwater of the Columbia watershed. Each of the Silver Bow, Little Black Foot and Warm Springs watersheds can be divided into smaller basins.

Because we all depend on water, and we all live in a watershed, and because we all live downstream and upstream, the study of the natural and built world around us is watershed science.

WATERSHED SCIENCE:

This is the study of all the physical and ecological processes within watersheds.

It includes, but is not confined to:

Aquatic biology
Botany
Ecology
Environmental chemistry
Erosion
Fisheries
Fluvial Geomorphology
Forestry
Geohydrology
Geology
Geophysics
Hydraulics
Limnology
Microbiology
Sediment transport and deposition
Water chemistry
Wildlife biology

 

The Columbia River Watershed     
Credit : U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, North Pacific Region, public domain]

Because most water quality and ecosystem problems are interrelated, they are best solved at the watershed level.