The Palatine Watershed (German: Pfälzische Hauptwasserscheide) forms the main drainage divide in the Palatinate between the Upper Rhine and the Middle Rhine, the two successive sections of the river Rhine that flow through the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
In the southern and central Palatine Forest the effect of the Palatine Watershed is especially clear. There it separates the catchment areas of its four major drainage systems into an eastern and a western region: The Lauter, referred to in its upper reaches as the Wieslauter, the Queich and the Speyerbach flow eastwards, directly into the Upper Rhine; the Schwarzbach collects the water from the western Palatine Forest and sends it via the Blies, Saar and Moselle rivers to the Middle Rhine.[1]
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