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Watershed delineation is the process of identifying the boundary of a watershed, also referred to as a catchment, drainage basin, or river basin.It is an important step in many areas of environmental science, engineering, and management, for example to study flooding, aquatic habitat, or water pollution.
A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the drainage divide , [ 1 ] made up of a succession of elevated features, such as ridges and hills .
The Irtysh is a chief tributary of the Ob river and is also the longest tributary river in the world with a length of 4,248 km (2,640 mi). The Madeira River is the largest tributary river by volume in the world with an average discharge of 31,200 m 3 /s (1.1 million cu ft/s).
Each subregion includes the area drained by a river system, a reach of a river and its tributaries in that reach, a closed basin or basins, or a group of streams forming a coastal drainage area. [6] Regions receive a two-digit code. The following levels are designated by the addition of another two digits. [7]
Where F is the sediment flux, S is the slope of the source area, and a is the source area. The right-hand side of this relation determines channel stability or instability. If the right-hand side of the equation is greater than zero, the hillslope is stable, and small perturbations such as small erosive events do no develop into channels.
[clarification needed] Water enters the mainstem from the river's drainage basin, the land area through which the mainstem and its tributaries flow. [3] A drainage basin may also be referred to as a watershed or catchment. [3] Strahler diagram. Only a segment of the mainstem gets the highest number.
Each headwater is considered one of the river's sources, as it is the place where surface runoffs from rainwater, meltwater, or spring water begin accumulating into a more substantial and consistent flow that becomes a first-order tributary of that river. The tributary with the longest course downstream of the headwaters is regarded as the main ...
Side valleys and tributary valleys are valleys whose brooks or rivers flow into greater ones. Upstream, the valleys can be classified in an increasing order which is equivalent to the usual orographic order : the tributaries are ordered from those nearest to the source of the river to those nearest to the mouth of the river .