Delineation of Watersheds: Adirondack Park, New York

Introduction

Watershed boundaries are increasingly being used in land and water management, separating the direction of water flow such that all water within one watershed flows toward the same outlet point. Thus, a pollution source at the head of one watershed will not affect adjoining ones, but it will affect every location downstream within its own watershed. Delineating watershed boundaries helps managers monitor the amount and quality of water entering a point of interest, such as a stream, lake, or estuary.

Adirondack Park is a protected area in northeastern New York that encompasses more than 6 million acres (24,700 square kilometers [km2]), which makes it the largest park in the contiguous United States. Although protected, much of the park is privately owned land, which is used mostly for forestry, agriculture, and recreation. Given its size and variety of uses, it's important to understand the sources and flow of water in the park.

Location

Adirondack Park in northeastern New York State, USA

Time to complete the lab

One hour

Prerequisites

Advanced GIS experience. ArcGIS^® Spatial Analyst is also needed.

Data used in this lab

Data that can be downloaded or viewed online; three required datasets:

Adirondack Park boundary from the New York State GIS Clearinghouse at http://www.nysgis.state.ny.us/

A hydrology layer from Cornell University's Geospatial Information Repository (CUGIR) site at http://cugir.mannlib.cornell.edu/index.jsp

A 30-arc-second digital elevation model (DEM) of North America accessed from the Esri web portal