If tool sheds hold tools, storage sheds hold stuff, woodsheds hold wood, garden sheds hold gardening supplies, and she sheds hold shes, what does a watershed hold?
This is a trick question because the word shed can be used as a verb as well as a noun. As a noun, a shed is a small building constructed to hold things. As a verb, it is the action of getting rid of something; think about a snake shedding its skin or dawn shedding darkness. The concept of watershed employs the verb not the noun. Therefore, a watershed is an area of land that sheds water to a common body of water. It’s rather confusing that unlike other sheds that hold onto things, a watershed gets rid of its namesake, water.
Subject to the forces of wind and rain ice and drought waves earthquakes, volcanoes, and tectonic plates moving into and away from each other, the earth’s surface is neither smooth or of the same height. It is a perfect hodgepodge of ups and downs, ins and and outs, softs and hards all working in harmony by design as an Eden for all of God’s creation.
Watersheds are part of that ecological design. Each body of water from the largest ocean to the tiniest of streams or ponds has a watershed, an area of land that drains to it. That is its watershed or may also be referred to as a drainage basin. As you would expect, the larger the body of water, the larger the area of land that drains to it. The bigger watersheds include watersheds of smaller and smaller size. Think about nesting sets of bowls.
I was born in the great Mississippi River Watershed, which at 1,245,000 square miles in size, makes it the fourth largest in the world. All or part of the water shed from 31 states drains into the Mississippi River. Now I live in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, which on the scale of watersheds, isn’t too shabby. More than 150 major rivers and streams flow into the Bay’s 64,299-square-mile (166,534 km2) drainage basin, which covers parts of six states (New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia) and all of Washington, D.C.
Perhaps when driving on a road trip, you have encountered a sign saying Entering or Leaving the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. If you parked your car at the sign, got out to take a picture, and it started to rain, the water that welled in front of the sign would eventually make its way to the Chesapeake Bay (through that convoluted water cycle we learned about). Water that fell on the other side of the line would eventually drain to another body of water in a different watershed.
Each large watershed is made up of and connected to smaller and smaller watersheds. Unlike Vegas, what happens in one part of the watershed affects the entire watershed. Here are some watershed maps to help you visualize the delineation of our landscape in terms of the movement of water rather than geopolitical.
Want to learn more about your personal watershed? The EPA has a great website where you plug in your address and your watershed map appears. Give it a try and also plug in the address for Sherwood Church (5 Sherwood Rd, Cockeysville, MD 21030).
Next time people ask where you live–give them your watershed address. And remember:
Psalm 95:3–5 — King James Version (KJV 1900)
3 For the Lord is a great God, And a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth:
The strength of the hills is his also.
5 The sea is his, and he made it:
And his hands formed the dry land.
