River basin

"The area of land from which all surface run-off flows through a sequence of streams, rivers and, possibly, lakes into the sea at a single river mouth, estuary or delta." (European Environmental Agency, 2019).

"Both river basins and watersheds are areas of land that drain to a particular water body, such as a lake, stream, river or estuary. In a river basin, all the water drains to a large river. The term watershed is used to describe a smaller area of land that drains to a smaller stream, lake or wetland. There are many smaller watersheds within a river basin"(Milwaukeeriverkeeper, n.d.).

Sources

European Environmental Agency. "Water glossary". Accessed March 2, 2019. Available at: https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/water/glossary

Milwaukeeriverkeeper. n.d. What’s a River Basin? What’s a Watershed? https://milwaukeeriverkeeper.org/whats-a-river-basin-whats-a-watershed/, last accessed 6 October 2021

Related Content

Capacity Building and Training Material

ARSET - Using Earth Observations to Monitor Water Budgets for River Basin Management II

Overview:

Rivers are a major source of freshwater. They support aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, provide transportation, generate hydropower, and when treated, provide drinking and agricultural water. Estimating and monitoring water budgets within a river basin is required for sustainable management of water resources and flooding within watersheds. This webinar series will focus on the use of NASA Earth observations and Earth system-modelled data for estimating water budgets in river basins.

ARSET - Using Earth Observations to Monitor Water Budgets for River Basin Management

Rivers are a major source of freshwater. They support aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, provide transportation, and generate hydropower. Managing river basin watersheds is critical for developing policies for sustainable water allocation and development. Over the online course of four sessions, this introductory webinar series will address using satellite data and Earth system modelling data sources to estimate surface water budgets

ARSET - River Basin Delineation Based on NASA Digital Elevation Data

Overview:

River basins (known as watersheds in North America) are areas of land that drain precipitation, surface water, and underlying groundwater into a river and its tributaries, eventually reaching a common outlet such as a lake, reservoir, river, or estuary. The drainage pattern is from smaller sub-basin to larger sub-basin, and from higher elevation to lower elevation. Land surface processes, precipitation, storm water, and wastewater runoff within basins have substantial impact on quantity and quality of the water draining into tributaries.

Event

Project / Mission / Initiative / Community Portal

Healthy Rivers for All Initiative

This website includes tools and resources for developing basin report cards. It includes reports that incorporate satellite imagery to measure environmental indicators and change over time.

With the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES), we are developing, packaging, and sharing a process that helps stakeholders create science-based report cards in their own basins with the right buy-in on-the-ground and credibility globally, so they can better manage resources for the protection of fresh water they depend upon.

Stakeholder

American University of Central Asia

Founded in 1993, AUCA develops future leaders for the democratic transformation of Central Asia. American University of Central Asia is an international, multi-disciplinary learning community in the American liberal arts tradition. AUCA is the first university in Central Asia to offer US accredited degrees in liberal arts programs through a partnership with Bard College in the United States. In addition to Bard, AUCA maintains partnerships with a number of universities and organizations worldwide.

Person

Software/Tool/(Web-)App

Bhuvan Ganga App

Bhuvan Ganga App is ISRO’s mobile application developed to enable public to collect and report information on various pollution sources that affects the water quality of river Ganga. This mobile app will provide a platform for crowd sourcing to monitor pollution in river Ganga and enable decision makers at National Mission for Cleaning Ganga (NMCG) under Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation, Government of India to prioritize interventions.

Bhuvan Ganga Geoportal

Bhuvan Ganga Geoportal provides platforms to manage, access, visualize, share and analyze geo spatial data, non-spatial data products and services towards spatial mashups to support NMCG objectives of environmental and ecological improvement within the Ganga River basin.