Hydrological code: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 06:04, 30 March 2016

Revision as of 12:43, 5 October 2016

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A '''hydrological code''' or '''hydrologic unit code''' is a sequence of numbers or letters that identify a hydrological feature like a [[river]], river [[Reach (geography)|reach]], [[lake]], or area like a [[drainage basin]] (also called watershed (in North America) or catchment..

One system, developed by [[Arthur Newell Strahler|Strahler]], known as the [[Strahler number|Strahler stream order]], ranks streams based on a hierarchy of tributaries. Each segment of a stream or river within a river network is treated as a node in a tree, with the next segment downstream as its parent. When two first-order streams come together, they form a second-order stream. When two second-order streams come together, they form a third-order stream, and so on.