Catchment area

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This article is about the human geography and sociological term. For the geomorphological meaning, see Drainage basin.

In human geography, a catchment area is the area from which a city, service or institution attracts a population that uses its services. For example, a school catchment area is the geographic area from which students are eligible to attend a local school.

Governments and community service organizations often define catchment areas for planning purposes and public safety such as ensuring universal access to services like fire departments, police departments, ambulance bases and hospitals.


Catchment areas are generally established and modified by local governments. These boundaries can be modeled using geographic information systems (GIS).[1] There can be large variability in the services provided within different catchments in the same area depending upon how and when those catchments were established.[2] They are usually contiguous but can overlap when they describe competing services.[3]


Catchments can be defined based upon a number of factors including distance to the facility, actual travel time to the facility, geographic boundaries or population within the catchment. In a distance based catchment, the area serviced will often depend on the number of visits expected to that institution by each individual. For example, it may be more acceptable to have a larger catchment for a hospital where any one individual will have few annual visits in comparison to a school where visits will be daily and hence desired distance would be closer. When a facility’s capacity can only service a certain volume, the catchment may be used to limit a population’s ability to access services outside of that area.[4] For example, children may be unable to enroll in a school outside of their catchment to prevent the school's services being exceeded.


  • Airports can be built and maintained in locations which minimize the driving distance for the surrounding population to reach them.[5]
  • A neighborhood or district of a city often has several small convenience shops, each with a catchment area of several streets. Supermarkets, on the other hand, have a much lower density, with catchment areas of several neighborhoods (or several villages in rural areas). This principle, similar to the central place theory, makes catchment areas an important area of study for geographers, economists, and urban planners.
  • In Nigeria most Federal Schools respect the fact that some states are educationally less developed than others. The country's higher education [6] catchment areas have therefore been designed to ensure a good mixture of students from different backgrounds.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ McLafferty, Sara L. (2003). "GIS and Health Care". Annual Review of Public Health. 24: 25–42. doi:10.1146/annurev.publhealth.24.012902.141012. PMID 12668754. 
  2. ^ Jenkins, C.; Campbell, J. (1996). "Catchment areas in general practice and their relation to size and quality of practice and deprivation: a descriptive study in one London borough". BMJ. 313 (7066): 1189–92. doi:10.1136/bmj.313.7066.1189. PMC 2352502free to read. PMID 8916754. 
  3. ^ Schuurman, Nadine; Fiedler, Robert S; Grzybowski, Stefan CW; Grund, Darrin (2006). "Defining rational hospital catchments for non-urban areas based on travel-time". International Journal of Health Geographics. 5: 43. doi:10.1186/1476-072X-5-43. PMC 1617091free to read. PMID 17018146. 
  4. ^ Parsons, Eddie; Chalkley, Brian; Jones, Allan (2000). "School Catchments and Pupil Movements: A case study in parental choice". Educational Studies. 26 (1): 33–48. doi:10.1080/03055690097727. 
  5. ^ "Airports: Non-Financial Analysis". Transport Canada. 
  6. ^ "Admission: University Admission". Students Nigeria. 

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