With more than 600 miles of streams and rivers flowing through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the region supports a broad variety of flora and fauna with its abundant waterways. These riperian, or streamside, communities are fed by more than 900 billion gallons of rain falling on the region each year. The mountain peaks receive more than eighty inches of rainfall each year and some fifty inches fall in the valleys.

Courtesy of Great Smoky Mountains - The Splendor of the Southern Appalachians
Elan Publishing, P.O. Box 8067, Charlottesville, VA 22906
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 91-71504