What is a Watershed

A sprinkle, a pitter-patter, a gentle shower, a battering storm or the trickling melt of snow – this is the story of water’s journey to the heart of our watershed: Lake Simcoe. 

We think it’s important to understand two things – first, what a watershed is, and second, how water travels through our watershed. We know that when we understand this journey, we can make better decisions to protect how our environment functions.

A watershed is created by natural elevations and landforms. In the case of the Lake Simcoe watershed (see the map on ​the right), the Oak Ridges Moraine to the south and the Oro Moraine to the north are significant natural land features that delineate our watershed – creating a shape similar to a bowl. When it does rain and the snow melts, the water flows from all of those high points down to the lowest point – Lake Simcoe. No matter whether it’s raining over Newmarket, Barrie, Uxbridge, or Schomberg, it all eventually makes its way to Lake Simcoe. 

Before our watershed became urbanized, water was easily absorbed into the natural, undeveloped landscape. The challenge water now faces on its journey to the lake includes human obstructions, like roads, houses, and parking lots. Paved or impervious surfaces (fancy way of saying surfaces that water can’t penetrate), dramatically change the way water interacts with the land and the way it flows.