Watershed Descriptions

Palo Alto – Back to Study Area

Area¹: 1,616,466 km²

Planning Watersheds¹: 4

Description: The Palo Alto watershed is located in San Mateo County and empties into the south part of the San Francisco Bay. The communities of East Palo Alto, Portola Valley, Woodside, Palo Alto, and part of Menlo Park are located in the watershed. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Huddart and Wunderlich County Parks, Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, Arastradero Preserve, numerous Open Space Preserves, and the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve are within the watershed. Stanford University and the Palo Alto Airport are also located in the watershed. To interactively explore features of this watershed, visit the Interactive Mapping section of this Web site.

Streams²:

Salmonids³:

• steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

Watershed Groups: San Francisquito Creek CRMP

Watershed Plans:

Ownership⁴: Local, Federal, and Private

Landcover and Landuse⁵:

Source Information:

¹California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Watersheds (CALWATER 2.2) for Hydrologic Sub-Area Name and Planning Watershed Name (see metadata for srp_calw22)
²U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Stream Reach File 3 (see metadata for srp_rf3)
³Personal communication: Jerry Smith (San Jose) and Don Alley (Brookdale), 2004.
⁴California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Conservation and Public Lands (Legacy Project) (see metadata spr_govtowna)
⁵California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Multi Source Landcover Data (2002) (see metadata srp_fveg)

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