This page is dedicated to the Napa River watershed and the creeks that flow within it. You might ask "what is a watershed?". Well, a watershed is an area of land that drains into a lake or river. As rainwater and melting snow run downhill, they carry sediment and other materials into our streams, lakes, wetlands and groundwater. John Wesley Powell, scientist geographer, put it best when he said that a watershed is:
"that area of land, a bounded hydrologic system, within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common water course and where, as humans settled, simple logic demanded that they become part of a community."
You can visualize this by cupping your hands together. Think of your hands as the Napa River watershed. If you drop a tear of water into your hands the water will flow down (as if it were flowing downstream in the watershed).
We all live in a watershed. Watersheds are the places we call home, where we work and where we play. Everyone relies on water and other natural resources to exist. What you and others do on the land impacts the quality and quantity of water and our other natural resources.
So, we feel it is important for all of us to gather a better understanding of our watershed, especially our creeks. Between 1999-2006 ICARE conducted the Benthic Macro-Invertebrate Study that gathered data about the creeks within our watershed. Below is a list of creeks that were sampled. From the map below find a nearby creek where you live, and learn about the creek from our lab & field data from the BMI Study. As we gain a better undertstanding of where we live, we can work at preserving it for our future generations.
What is TMDL? Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) is a regulatory term in the U.S. Clean Water Act, describing a value of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a body of water can receive while still meeting water quality standards.
This page is dedicated to the Napa River watershed and the creeks that flow within it. You might ask "what is a watershed?". Well, a watershed is an area of land that drains into a lake or river. As rainwater and melting snow run downhill, they carry sediment and other materials into our streams, lakes, wetlands and groundwater. John Wesley Powell, scientist geographer, put it best when he said that a watershed is:
