PHILIPPINE WATERSHEDS

PHILIPPINE WATERSHEDS
• Delineation of Drainage Area
• Sub-basin/Physical Properties
• Determination
Philippines
• The Philippines boasts of many different
kinds of natural water forms, such as
bays, rivers, lakes, falls, gulfs, straits,
and swamps.

• Philippines consist of 7,107 islands.

Where does water from body of water, such as a
bays, rivers, lakes, falls, straits, sea and
swamps came from?

• It came from rain, the hydrolic cycle. But not all rain water
falldown to bodies of water. Other rain water will first drop to
watersheds before going to the bodies of water
 Land where water from rain and
melting snow or ice drains downhill
Into a body of water, such as a bays,
rivers, lakes, falls, straits,
WATERSHED
WATERSHED
Sometimes called a
catchment area or
drainage basin.
sea and swamps.

The watershed includes both A watershed is a geographical

streams and rivers that convey the
water as well as the land surface from
which water drains into those
channels, and is separated from
adjacent basins by a drainage divide.
unit in which the hydrological
cycle and its components can
be analyzed. The equation is
applied in the form of
water-balance equation to a
geographical region, in order to
establish the basic hydrologic
characteristics of the region.

Usually a watershed is defined

A land feature that can be
as the area that appears, on the
identified by tracing a line along
basis of topography, to
the highest elevations between

DEFINITION
contribute all the
two areas on a map,
water that passes through a
often a ridge.

DEFINITION
given cross section of a stream.
 The surface trace of the
boundary that delimits a watershed is
called a divide. The horizontal
projection of the area of a watershed
is called the drainage area of a
stream at that cross section. The
location of the stream cross section
that defines the watershed is
determined by the analysis.
Examples Of Watersheds in The
Philippines
1.Pantabangan-Carranglan
• The 3rd Largest Watershed in the
Philippines
• Located in the upper reaches of
Pamapanga River in Nueva Ecija
• Borders the Sierra Madre and
Caraballo Mountain in Aurora and
Nueva Ecija
• 84,500 hectares area of the watershed
surrounding the Pantabangan Lake, an
impoundment of Pampanga River by the
Pantabangan Dam
 2. Lake Lanao Watershed
• Consists of the Lake Lanao Watershed
and Lanao Del Sur portion of the Agus
River Watershed
• Top 1 Largest Watershed in The
Philippines
• Located in the Province of Lanao Del
Sur of the Autonomous Region of
Muslim Midanao
• 180,460 hectares area of watershed
Main Function of a
Watershed
• is the production of a
continuous water supply
that would maintain the
lifeforms within it and in
the area fed by its
stream.
Importance of Watersheds

• Sustain life in more ways than one.

• According to the environmental protection agency 450 billion
in foods, fibre, manufactured goods and tourism depend on
clean, healthy watersheds.
• Healthy watersheds are important for the very sustenance of
human life.

• IKKAM BACKGROUND NA ETOY

HAHAHA
 A process of identifying
the drainage area of a
point or set of points.
WATERSHED
WATERSHED
In the delineation of a
watershed artificial barriers
(e.g. roads, railways) must
also be taken into
consideration. The
hydrological process takes
Place especially on the
surface, and it can be
modified by artificial inflow
(e.g. artificial derivation,
drinking and wastewater
networks, roads, pumps,
reservoirs).
If a permeable soil covers
an impermeable substrate,
the topographical division of
watershed will not always

DELINEATION
correspond to the line that is
effectively delimiting

DELINEATION
the groundwater.
.
 Figure 2.2. Artificial changes that occur in a watershed
[Musy, 2001]

• The conventional method of watershed delineation

requires a topographic map. To start the divide we
should start from the location of the chosen stream
cross section, then we draw a line away from the
left bank or the right bank always maintaining an
angle of 90° to the contour lines. We continue the
line until it is generally above the headwaters of the
stream network. Finally we return to the starting
point and we trace the divide from the other bank,
eventually connecting it with the first line.
Figure 2.3. Watershed delimitation method - detail
Delineating Watershed Boundaries

• All watershed delineation means is that

you’re drawing lines on a map to identify a
watershed’s boundaries.
• These are typically drawn on topographic
maps using information from contour lines.
Contour lines are lines of equal elevation,
so any point along a given contour line is
the same elevation.
“To delineate a watershed’s boundaries on
a topographic map it’s easiest if you first
understand some things about these maps. ”
Few Highlights of Topographic Maps
1) The primary lines on a topographic
map are called contour lines, and as stated
before, they represent points of equal
elevations. Some of these lines are
numbered, and those numbers are the
elevations of those contour lines. In the
U.S., those elevations are typically given
in feet above sealevel. You can move
across contour lines and know if the
elevation is increasing or decreasing, by
whether the number is increasing or
decreasing.
2) Streams and rivers are
shown by blue lines. Solid
blue lines show perennial
streams, and the dashed blue
lines show what are
estimated to be intermittent
streams.
3) Contour lines point
upstream (they form kind of
what looks like a V) as they
cross over a stream or river.
4) The closer the contour
lines are together the steeper
the terrain; the further apart
they are the flatter the
terrain.