What’s a watershed?

Is it a shed made of water?  No.  Is it the place where water sheds?  Yes.  A watershed is an area of land , such as a mountain or valley, that collects rainwater into a common outlet.  In Hawai’i, the common outlet is ultimately the ocean.  Some of the rain is absorbed by plants, some of it is absorbed underground, and the rest flows into surface rivers and streams. 

The closest Hawaiian equivalent of a watershed is the ahupua’a (ah-hoo-pooah-ah).  In ancient Hawaiian culture, Ahupua’a were political regions, often entire valleys, with the ridges between serving as boundaries, varying on different islands from as little as 100 acres to more than 100,000 acres.  Ahupua’a included the land from the mountains to the coast that drains into a stream, and the coastal ocean extending out to and including the coral reef.

Can a city be a watershed?  Sure.  Any landscape, be it paved, farmed or forested is made up of many interconnected watersheds.  In a city, rainfall is collected as runoff from streets into gutters that lead ultimately into the ocean.  This means that any trash, oil, fertilizer and other debris in the path of a watershed will also get dumped into the ocean. 

The Ahupua'a

Ancient Hawaiian life was based around the ahupua'a system of land management, which evolved to protect the upland water resources that sustained human life.........
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for more information, email us at info@eastmauiwatershed.org