Watershed Topography

The Macatawa Watershed shows a tremendous variety of topographical features ranging from rolling hills and dunes to vast areas of flat sand. The three major groups of soil found in the Watershed are (in decreasing order of particle size) sand, clay, and muck. The soils of the Watershed are naturally high in nitrates and phosphates, making the soils very fertile and suitable for sustaining a tremendous variety of plant life.

Approximately two-thirds of the surface area of the Macatawa Watershed – the eastern portion – is composed of clay and clay mixtures. Cutting through the layers of clay is a series of alluvial deposits found in current or former river beds. The most obvious of these is along Chicago Drive from Zeeland to Grand Rapids, the old bed of the Glacial Grand River, but other deposits occur along the Macatawa River and on the shores of Lake Macatawa. The western third of the Watershed (a triangle with its base along the Lake Michigan shore and its apex just east of Zeeland) is primarily sandy soils; these soils support a different variety of plants and animals than the clay-dominated areas of the eastern Macatawa Watershed