What is a Watershed?

A watershed is the area drained by a river, stream or other point of interest. The main area of University Park Campus is comprised of four primary watersheds. The four are:

  1. The Fox Hollow Drainage Basin
  2. The Bathgate Dam Basin
  3. The Main Campus Basin
  4. The West Campus Drainage Basin

Watershed map

Runoff from these four drain ultimately towards Spring Creek to Bald Eagle Creek to the West Branch of the Susquehanna River to the Susquehanna River to the Chesapeake Bay. The surface water and groundwater boundaries in the Spring Creek Basin are significantly different, which is not the norm. In fact, while these four watersheds lie directly adjacent to each other, they are significantly different in their hydrologic characteristics due to the area's complex soils and geology.