Watershed Article Index for
Watershed 		Articles about
Watershed 		Website Links For
Watershed 		 

Information About

Watershed
SHOPPER'S DELIGHT
 
Shop For:  
Department
Price Minimum:
Price Maximum:
      



  • In physical geography, watershed has two distinct meanings:

  • A watershed can be a Drainage Basin , especially in North American usage. This is the region of land whose water drains into a specified body of water.

  • A watershed can be a drainage Divide , especially in Britain and other Commonwealth countries. This is the ridge of land that separates two adjacent drainage basins.

  • A Watershed (television) , in Canada, Ireland, South Africa and the United Kingdom, is the time of day before which programme content of a specified or implied kind may not be screened and after which it is permissible. It is a figurative use of the word deriving from its original meaning as a boundary between drainage basins.

  • A watershed or watershed event is any moment or event separating two distinct periods of time.

  • '' Watershed '' is a South African band featuring lead singer Craig W. Hinds, most famous for their signature tune 'Indigo Girl', earning them much international exposure, most successfully in Germany.

  • '' Watershed '' is an American band based in Columbus, Ohio

  • '' Water Shed 5tet '', a band led by saxophonist Ben Opie , based in Pittsburgh , originally known as ''Watershed''.

  • The '' Watershed Media Centre '' is a media and arts centre in Bristol .




ETYMOLOGY OF ''WATERSHED''


The first recorded instance of the term ''watershed'' was in 1803 . The definition ascribed is as a dividing line between two river basins (water divide):

"Strathcluony..is a very high inland tract, being the water-shed of the country between the two seas."


The term soon developed an alternate and closely related meaning as ''"the slope down which the water flows from a water-parting,"''Oxford English Dictionary, which corresponds to the area of Surface Runoff , and excludes channel flow. This meaning was ascribed to the following quote:

"To the south~west of Kington the lower beds of the Old Red Sandstone..have been the sub-aqueous water-shed, down which the coarse detritus has been swept."


These closely-related meanings led Thomas Henry Huxley , in 1877 , to remark the following:
"To avoid all ambiguity it is perhaps best to set aside the original meaning of ‘watershed’, and employ the term to denote the slope along which the water flows, while the expression ‘water-parting’ is employed for the summit of this slope"


By 1874 the definition had expanded further, to become distinctly synonymous with the drainage basin as a whole, and not just the upper slopes.
"The Missouri Region, in its broadest sense, as embracing the whole water~shed of that great river and its tributaries."


The figurative use of ''watershed'' as a moment separating two distinct periods, following the first and second definition, was adopted by 1878 :
"Midnight! the outpost of advancing day!.. The watershed of Time, from which the streams of Yesterday and To-morrow take their way



REFERENCES