Watershed Characteristics
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loginThe watershed is the basic unit of all hydrologic analysis and designs. Any watershed can be subdivided in to a setof smaller watersheds. Usually a watershed is defined for a given drainage point. This point is usually the location at which the analysis is being made and is referred to as the watershed “outlet”. The watershed, therefore, consists of all the land area that drains water to the outlet during a rainstorm. The boundary of a watershed therefore consists of the line drown across the contours joining the highest elevations surrounding the basin. Watersheds considered in engineering hydrology vary in size from a few hectares in urban areas to several thousand square kilometers for large river basins. Figure 1 shows the delineation of a watershed boundary.
