A watershed management framework supports partnering, using sound science, taking well-

planned actions and achieving results.

A lake/wetland and its watershed, or the area of land that drains into the water body, can be
thought of as a connected system with interacting physical, chemical and biological components.
Because of the close connection between the lake/wetland and its watershed, the lake will be
affected by the natural characteristics of the watershed and the human activities taking place there.
Climate, soil, geography, the lake/wetland watershed ratio, the slope of the land, and landuse are
all factors that will affect the quality of the lake.

hydrologically-defined geographic areas,

that area of land, a bounded hydrologic system, within which all living things are inextricably linked
by their common water course

Watershed Divide - a line dividing land whose drainage flows toward the given stream from land
whose drainage flows away from that stream.
- defines a watershed
- drainage divide
- watershed boundary

Watershed - is an area of land that drains water to a common outlet.

- basin
- catchment
- contributing area

Watershed Unit - a discrete area of the landscape surface that reflects hydrologic properties that
have been delineated for management purposes.

Major Watershed Unit - an administrative watershed unit delineation that exists at the highest
formally defined level in the Minnesota watershed unit hierarchy.
- always composed of Minor and 11-Digit Watershed Units
- are made of catchments.

USGS 11-digit Watershed Unit - an administrative watershed unit delineation that exists between
the formally defined Minnesota DNR Major and Minor watershed hierarchal levels.
- always composed of minor and 11-digit watershed units
- are made of catchments.
Minor Watershed Unit - an administrative watershed unit delineation that exists at the lowest
formally defined level in the Minnesota watershed unit hierarchy.
- are made of catchments.

Basin Watershed Unit - An administrative watershed delineation that exists at the lowest formally
defined level in the Minnesota watershed unit hierarchy.
- entire contributing area

Lake Watershed - An area of land that drains water to a lake outlet.

- Collection of all catchments up-stream from a lakes outlet.
- Includes both contributing watershed volume plus landlocked lake watershed contributing
volume.

Watercourse -

Streamshed - An area of land that drains water to a stream.

Ditchshed - An area of land that drains water to a ditch.

Gaugeshed - An area of land that drains water to a gauging station.

- can be a: ditchshed, streamshed, lakeshed,

Lake Watershed Project Terms

30Dec98

Contributing Area - the total area flowing to an outlet

- produces contributing volume
- catchment

Outlet - the point at which water flows out of an area.

- the lowest point along the boundary of the drainage divide
- pour point

Primary Lake Outlet - A single point (location) in the landscape where all surface water
discharging from a lake will flow through. Typically, such points are associated with lake
boundaries, adjacent wetland complexes, and water control structures.

Gauging Station - A point (location) in a watercourse where flow is monitored at regular intervals.

Contributing Volume

Local Area Watershed - that upstream area flowing to an outlet as overland flow (i.e., not
including channel flow from upstream basins). 1998

- The land area representing the direct contributing area. +SRV 2004
- The land area representing direct runoff. +SRV 2004
- The upstream area represented / contained within the height of land delineation. +SRV 2004
- The entire land surface area within the height of land delineation minus any land area
represented by an inlet watercourse (ditch shed or stream shed). +SRV 2004

Catchment - The smallest delineated portion of a watershed unit necessary to characterize a

watershed of interest.
- Identified by the Lake Watershed Delineation Project with unique Hydrologic Unit Identification
Number (hu_id). +SRV 2004

Local Area Lake Watershed OR Local Area Lake Catchment -

A catchment delineation that contains a lake (designated by an HU_Id). +SRV 2004

Everything between two lakes.

Everything between two lake pour points.

Upstream basin of

- The contributing area’s volume flowing through a point minus any upstream delineated
catchment’s volume.
- the smallest delineated minor watershed division area
- catchment fragments are watersheds defined by watershed divides
- lake watersheds are catchments
- lake watersheds are catchment fragments

Direct Contributing Area

- A delineation that maps to the first height of land that routes water directly into the lake.
- Excludes contributing areas.
- Management is often focused on a lake rather than a lake district or region.
- Lake based funding ties the scope of projects to the direct contributing area.

Classic Watershed. A land and water area that has all the surface drainage within its boundary
converging to a single point.

Remnant Areas. These areas are typically formed as residual areas after delineation of classic
watersheds. The most common example of a remnant area is the small triangular wedge between
the boundaries of adjacent watersheds flowing into the same side of another stream.

Hydrologic Unit (HU). A hydrologic unit is a drainage area delineated to nest in a multi-level,
hierarchical drainage system. Its boundaries are defined by hydrographic and topographic criteria
that delineate an area of land upstream from a specific point on a river, stream or similar surface
waters. A hydrologic unit can accept surface water directly from upstream drainage areas, and
indirectly from associated surface areas such as remnant, non-contributing, and diversions to form
a drainage area with single or multiple outlet points. Hydrologic units are only synonymous with
classic watersheds when their boundaries include all the source area contributing surface water to
a single defined outlet point.
Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC). The numerical identifier of a specific hydrologic unit consisting of a
2-digit sequence for each specific level within the delineation hierarchy.

Watershed Unit
- Major Watershed
- Minor Watershed
- Eleven Digit Watershed
- Catchment

Trying to name watershed coverages brings up the infamous question "what is a lake watershed".
The best definition especially from a hydrologist's point of view is An area of land that drains
water to a lake outlet.
- collection of all catchments up-stream from a lakes outlet.
- Includes both contributing watershed volume plus landlocked lake watershed contributing
volume.

Trying to name watershed coverages brings up the infamous question "what is a lake
watershed". The best definition, especially from a hydrologist's point of view is:
- An area of land that drains water to a lake outlet.
- A collection of all hydrologic units (hu_id) up-stream from a lakes outlet.
- Includes both contributing watershed volume plus landlocked lake watershed contributing
volume.

So the difficulty is how do we represent that. Long ago Robert brought up a REGIONS subclass
concept. If I remember correctly there was two ways to do this:
1.) each watershed and its upstream contributing area would be represented by one region
coverage -a bit of a data management nightmare.
2.) derive the product on the fly.

Robert put together some base code that I expanded upon. The foundation of the process
identified the downstream watersheds. Bart added the upstream component (upadj_hu).

Recently I turned some example data over to Tim who pulled together a script that identifies all
upstream and/or downstream watersheds with the click of a button that results in a selected set
of up or down stream watersheds.

So, why is this important for this group? It appears to me, after discussing with Jim and thinking
back to conversations with others that a stand alone lake watershed product has complicated
management issues. To many, a lake watershed is an area of interest within the actual lake
watershed, loosely defined as that upstream area flowing to an outlet as overland flow not
including channel flow from upstream basins. Such a product is project specific and may or may
not exist within our delineations. As a result, a coverage with the name Bart has correctly called
"wsh_lakepy3" probably should not exist but instead be derived by the user with Tim's watershed
 tool from a coverage/shapefile that contains all of our new watershed delineations within a given
major watershed. It's name could be derived from something simply reflecting "watershed
basins". We would however, have a stand alone Major watershed coverage.

Thoughts....

Sean 3 May 2004

I tend to like the term "total watershed area" which is not necessarily the same as "contributing"
watershed.
--
Another option would be to just use the NRCS terms, and their defns for "classic watershed",
"remnant watershed," and "hydrologic unit."
-----
My vote would be to keep it simple - only define: 1) total watershed area; and 2) hydrologic unit.

JS-----3May04