Earth  ID: 4506

The Rivers of Central California

Visualizations by Horace Mitchell Released on November 30, 2016
The central California Watershed is the largest drainage basin in California.. The USGS has created a database of this area which indicates the direction of waterflow at each point. By assembling these directions into streamflows, it is possible to trace the path of water from every point of the area to the San Pablo Bay. This animation starts with the points furthest from the bay and reveals the streams and rivers as a steady progression towards the bay until all the major rivers are revealed. The speed of the reveal of the rivers is not dependent on the actual speed of the water flow. The reveal proceeds at a constant velocity along each river path, timed so that all reveals reach the bay at the same time.
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An animation of the flows along the rivers of central California. This animation does not show actual flow rates of the rivers. All rivers are shown with identical rates. The river colors and widths correspond to the relative lengths of river segments. This version shows all of California with an east-up orientation.
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An animation of the flows along the rivers of central California. This animation does not show actual flow rates of the rivers. All rivers are shown with identical rates. The river colors and widths correspond to the relative lengths of river segments. This version shows central California in a north-up orientation.

Visualization Credits

Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC): Lead Visualizer
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4506

Data Used:
Terra and Aqua/MODIS/Blue Marble: Next Generation also referred to as: BMNG
Credit:
The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).
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HYDRO1K
Database - USGS
HYDRO1k is a geographic database providing consistent global coverage of topographically derived data sets, including streams, drainage basins, and ancillary layers derived from GTOPO30.
Credit:
U.S. Geological Survey EROS Center
view all stories where this data set is used
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

Keywords:
DLESE >> Hydrology
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Hydrosphere >> Surface Water >> Rivers/Streams
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Hydrosphere >> Surface Water >> Watershed Characteristics
SVS >> Hyperwall
NASA Science >> Earth

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0