Welcome to the Southwest Virginia's Big Laurel Creek - Whitetop Laurel Creek Watershed Study!


This blog was created to share products developed for the Virginia Tech graduate course NR 5264 Watershed Stewardship, College of Natural Resources, Fall 2025 semester.

It is my hope that some of the products shared with you through this blog will be of assistance to the Southwest Virginia (SWVA) community as we recover from the damages caused by Hurricane Helene in the fall of 2024 together.

Location: Whitetop Laurel Creek near Damascus, VA, USA

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Mapping and Delineating the Big Laurel Creek – Whitetop Laurel Creek Watershed

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The Big Laurel Creek – Whitetop Laurel Creek watershed is located in southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee, USA.   The watershed is one of the headwaters of the South Fork Holston River, which flows into the Tennessee River which flows into the Mississippi River.     The Big Laurel Creek – Whitetop Laurel Creek Watershed is assigned the US Geological Survey (USGS) Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC12) 060101020201 and is one of the most eastern source watersheds of the Tennessee River (HUC2 06) watershed.   The eastern boundary of the Big Laurel Creek – Whitetop Laurel Creek watershed corresponds to the boundary between the Tennessee River (HUC2 06) and the Ohio River (HUC2 05) watershed.  This means that a raindrop that falls just on the west edge of the Big Laurel Creek – Whitetop Laurel Creek watershed boundary will reach the Mississippi River by the Tennessee River watershed much, much faster than a raindrop that falls east of the boundary and flo...
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Equipment Research and Useful Modeling Technologies for Watershed Analysis

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The equipment and tools for watershed assessment and analysis in the field are numerous and varied, and used by biologists, geomorphologists, engineers, and other related professions.  Common tools are measuring devices, from simple items such as handheld surveying equipment and measuring rods to more modern items like cameras, unmanned aerial drones, and light detection and ranging (LIDAR) remote sensing technology. For my analysis of the Big Laurel Creek – Whitetop Laurel Creek watershed, I have walked the watershed and photographed key locations that will be addressed in a future blog post.  In addition, I conducted the hydrologic analysis for the Mapping and Delineating the Big Laurel Creek – Whitetop Laurel Creek Watershed blog post on 28 September 2025 using three resources available on-line for watershed visualization.  This blog post will describe the procedure that I followed for that visualization.     Figure 1.  Visualization of the the B...
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Flood and Drought Data for the Big Laurel-Whitetop Laurel Creek Watershed

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  (Note that this blog entry will be updated with more information after the 2025 Federal Government shutdown is over.) The Big Laurel Creek – Whitetop Laurel Creek watershed recently  experienced a catastrophic flood event due to   the remnants of Hurricane Helene during 23-28 September 2024.   (The watershed has not experienced a drought as far as I can tell from the historical records available.)   An excellent presentation of the aftermath of Hurricane Helene is:   Helene in Southern Appalachia, One year later: An event analysis and how we move forward, by the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Asheville, North Carolina, September 17, 2025 https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/8887acbd2dbd4d28a68e79fe53cbfaa3   The United States Geological Survey (USGS) stream gage station nearest to the Big Laurel Creek – Whitetop Laurel Creek watershed outfall is gage number 03473000, named S(outh) F(ork) HOLSTON RIVER NEAR DAMASCUS, VA, lo...
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