A Raindrop’s Journey

Take a Virtual Tour of Wisconsin’s Lake Superior Basin

Take a Virtual Tour of Superior’s Streams

How Do Our Watersheds Become Impaired?

Charting a Course to Stream Health

Links

A Raindrop’s Journey

Imagine you are a raindrop falling fast through the sky, buffeted by wind, and you see a landscape like this below you:

You have just entered the Lake Superior Basin!

Picture Source: Lake Superior Basin: Land Use

As you fall towards Lake Superior, you know that wherever you splash down, you will eventually drain into the Lake.  That’s what a watershed is – an area of land where water (and everything mixed with the water) drains downhill to a common outlet – in this case Lake Superior.  Each watershed is defined by a boundary consisting of ridges, hills, or mountains.  Watersheds come in many different sizes; the largest watershed unit is a basin.  A basin is made up of a network of smaller watersheds and sub-watersheds. 

The weather service has just given us an update! The wind is blowing from the northeast, so there’s a good chance you will end up falling on the Wisconsin side of the Lake Superior Basin!

Click HERE for a map of the primary basins in the world.

Click HERE to find out which watershed YOU live in.

Northwest Wisconsin’s Lake Superior Basin

Click on each watershed to view it in greater detail.

Picture Source: Map of the Lake Superior Basin

It looks like you are going to splash down in the St. Louis/Lower Nemadji Rivers watershed, near Superior, Wisconsin.  All the land in this watershed drains to either the Nemadji River or the St. Louis River, and those two rivers feed into Lake Superior.  As you get closer to the City of Superior, you are able to discern more details below you…

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City of Superior Watersheds

Click HERE to go to an interactive map of Superior’s Streams,

with links to each Superior stream for fun facts, pictures, and monitoring data.

Map Source: Wisconsin DNR Surface Water Data Viewer

SPLAT!

As you hover in the air over the Nemadji River, a gust of wind buffets you a bit farther to the northwest, and you land smack on the roof of Superior High School.  As you slide down the gutter and into the storm drain, you realize that you will come out of the pipe and into Faxon Creek – you’ve just entered a sub-watershed!  A sub-watershed is a smaller basin of a larger drainage area that all drains to a central point of the larger watershed.  Faxon Creek feeds into Superior Bay, which is part of the drowned river mouth of the St. Louis River.  This river drains into Lake Superior between Minnesota Point and Wisconsin Point; the mouth was drowned when the water level in Lake Superior rose, filling the estuary with water.

Welcome to Lake Superior!

You and your raindrop friends have brought a plume of red clay (and lots of other pollutants) with you.  Excessive sedimentation in streams and rivers is the main cause of surface water pollution in the US (US EPA).  We are just beginning to learn about water quality in the City of Superior's streams.  To find out more, click HERE.

Photo Credit: Great Lakes Erosion and Flooding

Albert Dickas, University of Wisconsin- Superior

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Take a Virtual Tour of Superior’s Streams

How Do Our Watersheds Become Impaired?

Charting a Course to Stream Health

Links

Streams and Wetlands in the Lake Superior Watershed

Lake Superior Streams

Coastal Wetlands of Wisconsin’s Great Lakes

Wisconsin DNR Surface Water Data Viewer

Wisconsin’s Lake Superior Basin Plan

Stream Monitoring

Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Citizen Stream-Monitoring Program

Wisconsin Water Action Volunteers

St. Louis River Watch

US Geological Survey

World Water Monitoring Day

Watershed Associations and Agencies

St. Louis River Citizens Action Committee

Nemadji River Basin Project

Bad River Watershed Association

Friends of the Brule River

Minnesota Waters

Clean Water Action Alliance of Minnesota

Wisconsin Sea Grant

Minnesota Sea Grant

Wisconsin Coastal Management Program

Minnesota Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Program

Lake Superior Binational Forum

International Joint Commission

Save Lake Superior Association

Rivers Alliance of Wisconsin

Wisconsin Wetlands Association

Water Education and Research

Water on the Web

Lake Superior Research Institute

Natural Resources Research Institute Center for Water and the Environment

Center for Watershed Protection

Wisconsin DNR Waters

Minnesota DNR Rivers and Streams

Minnesota DNR Division of Waters

UW-Extension Lake Superior Basin Education

Give Water a Hand

Website Created by Kari Hedin, 2007