Medina SWCD’s Watershed Services:
What is a watershed?
A watershed is an area of land from which all water drains to a common location. The watershed is generally named for the lake or river to which it drains.
Watersheds are not determined by jurisdiction but by natural landscapes and ridges. This means that to protect a watershed, one must look at a larger scale.
Watersheds come in many shapes and sizes. Smaller watersheds that feed into the same stream, river, lake or ocean are called sub-watersheds of that larger system.
Medina County’s Watersheds
Medina County has several large watersheds, named after the river or creek that they flow into. The two biggest watersheds in Medina County are the Rocky River and the Black River watersheds. They, along with the Yellow Creek watershed eventually flow north to Lake Erie.
The watershed that makes up the third largest section of Medina County is Chippewa Creek watershed, which includes Chippewa Lake (Ohio’s largest inland glaciated lake).
Which watershed do you live in?
The Continental Divide in Medina County
Medina County is split by the continental divide in which water flows to one of two locations; either north towards Lake Erie or south towards the Ohio River.
Although Lake Erie and the Ohio River are large bodies of water, the areas draining to them are considered sub-watersheds of the Atlantic Ocean and The Gulf of Mexico respectively.
Watershed Resource Links: