You wake up, flush the toilet, set the sprinklers, take the dog out, and pour a cup of coffee, and for you, it’s just another morning routine.
But that impact isn’t over. The water doesn’t vanish, and the addition to the soil (if not picked up) pushes the bacteria-laden material straight into our waterways and streams after a good rain or watering.
The cumulative effect of the morning becomes part of a vast, interconnected system known as a watershed, an extensive grid of rivers, streams, and groundwater that ultimately dictates the water you drink, the food you eat, and the future water supply for your community.
Everything flows downhill. The health of your local watershed is quite literally in your hands.
“We depend on our rivers to provide wildlife habitat, safe drinking water, irrigation for agriculture, and recreation for millions of Texans,” states a Texas Parks & Wildlife Department report. “The burden that we place on our state’s drainage basins can lead to water quality degradation and reduced environmental flows.”
Simply put, a watershed is a region or area bounded by a divide, like an oddly shaped bowl with sloping sides, where rainfall and snowmelt slowly drain downward toward a reservoir, bay, or the ocean. Watersheds, also known as drainage basins or catchments, may start out flat, allowing trickles of water to settle into ponds, creeks, and streams, gaining speed and movement as the slope increases. Gravity helps guide the path the water takes across the landscape. When rain falls on dry ground, it can soak in and become groundwater that will eventually seep into the nearest stream. Some water infiltrates much deeper into underground reservoirs called aquifers.
A watershed consists of surface water (water you can see, such as lakes, streams, reservoirs, and wetlands) and groundwater (water beneath the surface). Larger watersheds, like the Brazos, can even contain smaller watersheds within their boundaries. There are 14 sub-watersheds (smaller drainage areas within a larger watershed) within the Brazos River Basin, and even more micro watersheds (very small drainage areas).
Some watersheds are small, covering a single county, while others span thousands of square miles and may contain streams, rivers, lakes, and underlying groundwater, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The largest in the United States is the Mississippi River Watershed, which stretches from the Rockies to the Appalachians, draining 1.15 million square miles (2,981,076 square kilometers) from 31 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces, according to NOAA.
All along the mighty Brazos River’s path, water joins into the procession through the state, moving downstream toward the Gulf of America. Each environment the water passes through, whether natural or human-made, affects the cleanliness and health of the river. For example, heavy rainfall on a large parking area increases the risk of flooding by rushing over concrete toward storm drains, where there is no grass, brush, or trees to slow its flow.
That same storm washes puddles of leaked motor oil and fluids, which once stained the blacktop and were discarded trash, into our waterways, slowly polluting our drinking water system.
“Watersheds are important because the streamflow and the water quality of a river are affected by things, human-induced or not, happening in the land area ‘above’ the river-outflow point,” states the U.S. Geological Survey.
Watersheds are critical because the streamflow and water quality of a river like the Brazos are affected by the daily events occurring on the land it drains.
“Pesticides can enter a body of water through surface water runoff, wind and water erosion, leaching and ‘spray drift,’ which occurs when wind blows a pesticide into a body of water as it is being sprayed over an area of land,” according to a Texas Parks & Wildlife Department report. “Once in a body of water, pesticides often decompose into compounds that are more toxic and increase the threat to the surrounding environment. Although people use pesticides to control only certain target species, they often unintentionally harm surrounding organisms. Furthermore, some pesticides decompose rather slowly. Because of this, they can build up in the food chain and have a cascading effect throughout the system.”
The Brazos River watershed stretches from New Mexico to the Gulf of America. The basin originates about 50 miles west of the Texas-New Mexico border, launching a watershed that stretches 1,050 miles and comprises 44,620 square miles, 42,000 of which are in Texas.
The Brazos River Authority’s environmental services team conducts comprehensive water quality and biological monitoring, analysis, and data management across the watershed to provide scientific information on its health. That data is used to develop and implement programs to maintain and improve environmental health throughout the Brazos River Basin.
With all that information, what actually makes a watershed healthy?
A healthy watershed has enough water, food, shelter, and other resources to help all living in its boundaries to survive – from people to plants, animals, and insects. It provides a balance of clean water, soil, and air.
A healthy watershed can potentially benefit you in several, normally unseen ways. They are necessary for virtually all high-quality outdoor recreation involving the use of lakes or rivers, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Great fishing opportunities are usually due to healthy watersheds and water. Surface water sent to storage as a drinking water source is substantially less expensive to treat for human consumption if it originates from a healthy, pollution-free watershed, according to the EPA. And, as a bonus, property values could be higher living next to healthy waters versus impaired waters.
Discover your local watershed and start learning how you can help protect it by clicking here.
Contact your local county leaders or check with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality about watershed groups where you might participate in helping keep our waters clean.