A Major Watershed

The Delaware watershed starts in the higher elevations of the Catskill and Pocono mountains and drains through 4 states before the river spills into Delaware Bay and then the Atlantic Ocean.

Scientists have developed a system called “stream ordering” to specify the size and, to some extent, the position of stream and river segments within a watershed. 1st order streams are the smallest and when two 1st order streams converge, they create a 2nd order stream. When two 2nd order streams converge, they create a 3rd order stream, and so on.

By the time the Delaware River empties to the Atlantic Ocean it is a 7th order river that has drained more than 12,500 mi² of watershed.

For comparison, the Mississippi River is a 10th order and the Amazon River is a 12th order stream.

View a sub-watershed of the Delaware »