Watershed Descriptions

Pescadero Creek – Back to Study Area

Pescadero Creek

Area¹: 233,791 km²

Planning Watersheds¹: 9

Description: The Pescadero Creek watershed is located is southern San Mateo County and includes a small part of Santa Cruz County. The watershed abuts Santa Clara County on the east and a small part of the Pacific coastline on the west. The communities of Pescadero and Loma Mar are in this watershed. The Pescadero and Pomponio State Beaches and a part of San Gregorio State Beach, the San Mateo County Memorial and Pescadero Creek County Parks, the Portola Redwoods State Park and a portion of the Butano State Park are located in the watershed. To interactively explore features of this watershed, visit the Interactive Mapping section of this Web site.

Streams²:

Bloomquist Creek (1.7 km)
Butano Creek (23.9 km)
Evans Creek (2.9 km)
Fall Creek (2.2 km)
Hoffman Creek (1.8 km)
Honsinger Creek (5.7 km)
Keyston Creek (1.5 km)
Little Butano Creek (7.9 km)

McCormick Creek (3.1 km)
Oil Creek (0.2 km)
Pescadero Creek (36.2 km)
Peters Creek (5.5 km)
Peterson Creek (1.7 km)
Pomponio Creek (11.9 km)
South Fork Butano Creek (6.5 km)
Tarwater Creek (3.5 km)

Salmonids³:

coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch)
steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

Watershed Groups: None known 11/03

Watershed Plans:

Pescadero-Butano Watershed Assessment

Ownership⁴: Local, State, Federal, and Private

Landcover and Landuse⁵:

Pie Chart

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)