1. Ground Water Groundwater is water that comes from the ground.
1/2 of everyone in the United States drinks groundwater everyday!
Groundwater comes from rain, snow, sleet, and hail that soaks into the ground.

2. Surface water
We know that precipitation (rain, snow, sleet and hail) will soak into the ground or it runs downhill into surface water.
What is surface water?
Water found on the surface of the Earth such as rivers, lakes, streams or ocean

3. Tributaries What is a river?
A large channel along which water is continually flowing down a slope—made of many streams that come together (tributaries)
What are tributaries?
streams and smaller rivers that feed into a main/large river

4. What is a watershed?
an area of land that drains water to the lowest point—a river, stream, lake, or ocean

5. Everyone lives, works or plays in a watershed.
Watersheds drain water to the lowest point. 
In the diagram below, the land within the white line is the watershed that drains into the tributaries that will eventually flow larger river and then on to the ocean

6. A group of interconnected watersheds form a
river basin.

7. What is a river basin?
Encompasses all land surface drained by tributaries (streams and creeks) that flow downhill eventually into one large river.
A river basin’s
final destination
is an estuary or
ocean.

8. North Carolina River Basins
Durham
NC is made of 17 river basins
5 will flow into the Mississippi River Basin
The other 12 will flow into the Atlantic Ocean
11 originate in NC
Only 4 are entirely contained within NC:
Cape Fear, Neuse, White Oak, and Tar-Pamlico

9. Some river basins will become watersheds to another LARGER river basin such as the Mississippi River Basin.
In NC the New, Watauga, French Broad, Little Tennessee, Hiwassee all flow into the Ohio River Basin and then to the even larger Mississippi Basin

10. Mississippi River Basin's watersheds are large areas.

11. Mississippi River Basin