Catchment area

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A Catchment area may be:

• In physical geography: a water catchment area is a drainage basin or watershed, the region of land whose water drains past a specific point along a river or into a specified body of water. The determination the catchment area is important in the field of water supply and hydrology.

• In human geography: a catchment area is the area and population from which a city or individual service attracts visitors/customers. For example, a school catchment area is the geographic area from which students are eligible to attend a local school. Local governments and community service organizations often define catchment areas or service areas for public safety (fire, police) and emergency medical services. These may be founded on formal local government boundaries or on some other geographic basis. A neighbourhood or district of a city often has several small convenience shops, each with a catchment area of several streets. There is a much lower density of supermarkets, and these have catchment areas of several neighbourhoods (or several villages in rural areas). This principle, similar to the Central Place Theory, makes catchment area an important area of study for geographers, economists and urban planners.

• In airline industry: an airport catchment area.