Watershed
Also called: drainage basin, catchment
The land area that drains to a common outlet — the natural unit water supply is measured and managed in.
Everything that falls inside a watershed either evaporates, soaks in or flows to the same point. That makes it the only physically coherent boundary for supply questions, and it almost never lines up with a county or state line.
Practically, this is why a right's basin matters more than its address: two rights in the same county can draw from watersheds with completely different supply, appropriation and administrative conditions.
Where this shows up in the data
See also
More in Hydrology & supply
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