Lake Wingra Watershed Boundary

A watershed is an area of land that separates waters flowing to different rivers, basins, or seas, in this case Lake Wingra.  The Lake Wingra watershed has a natural ground watershed determined by the lay of the land, and a second, or artificial surface watershed ( or sewer shed boundary) so named because it is defined by the design of the municipal storm sewer system.  The storm sewer systems consists of streets, roads, storm water drainage ways, storm culverts, and storm water detention ponds.

The excellent graphic below by Mark Wegener, shows the outlines of these two watersheds in our area.  GroundwaterBoundary.  Awareness of these boundaries is important in efforts to control storm water runoff and to an understanding of our human impacts on watersheds, lakes, and water quality.