Science

Watershed Moments

Changing the way we see California’s landscapes.

California Trout is proud to present Watershed Moments to educate, enlighten, and connect you to key California watersheds.

No matter where you live, your home is in a watershed: a land area that drains to a central location, such as a lake, river, or ocean. Watersheds impact everyone; every community, farm, ranch, and forest. They provide a vital resource for all living things to survive and thrive.

There are countless watersheds across California — some as large as the San Francisco Bay, some as small as a creek — each of them important and unique.

The map above shows the boundaries of the thousands of watersheds in California. Watersheds can be described as “nested” – larger watersheds encompass many smaller watersheds. They all fit together like puzzle pieces to form our land masses.

Watersheds Explained

What exactly is a watershed? When water falls as rain or snow, it flows downhill, coming together as creeks, streams, and rivers and eventually reaches an outlet, a body of water such as reservoirs, bays, and the ocean. The entire area of land that the water flows through is called a […]

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