“Blackwater Rising” – Interview with Regina Hirsch: Organizer:
"Localizing California Waters Conference.” 11/3 – 06/2014, Yosemite.
By Willi Paul, Planetshifter.com Media
http://www.planetshifter.com/node/2223
excerpt:
W: Please define a watershed from the POV of a civil engineer and a
water rights activist!
R: A watershed to a civil engineer is a calculation of dynamic forces; a spatial unit of cumulative measures following rivers systems to a common basin. An engineer is looks at a watershed in terms of flow, hydraulics, pollutant loads inputs,
land use cover and flooding potentials.
A water rights activist would define a watershed as a planning unit, a geographical area in which stakeholders who inputs affect downstream basins. Either way, a watershed is a map of geographical inputs which during storm events, flow into a common basin, such as San Francisco Bay. All water flows downhill, and therefore thinking like a watershed promotes the idea that all upstream land uses affect the downstream business and ecology downstream.