Welcome!

This is the website for an effort to create a new hydrologic observatory in the Pacific Northwest. The Pacific Northwest Hydrologic Observatory (PNWHO) will initially focus on the Deschutes and the Willamette River Basins, two constrasting watersheds that share a common divide along the crest of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon.

The Willamette is a humid to super humid basin with high drainage density and rapid runoff response. The Deschutes is a semi-arid watershed with very low drainage density and low runoff response. Together, the two basins contain the largest and fastest growing population centers in Oregon. By twinning, the PNWHO represents a full range of landscape gradients and societal problems relating to water quantity and quality in the Western USA.

The PNWHO is supported by and affiliated with Oregon State University's new Institute for Water and Watersheds.