Glossary

BATHYMETRY:  the measurement of depth of water in oceans, lakes, or rivers; submarine topography, or think upside down topo map.

EULERIAN SPECIFICATION:  the fixed-point approach to collecting data.  It’s the weather station analogy, but in this case it’s a gauging station and the river flows past it.

GIS:  Geographic Information System; a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present spatial or geographical data.

LANGRANGIAN SPECIFICATION:  Freshwater Map’s game-changing “go-with-the-flow” method of collecting 3-D river data.  It’s the weather balloon analogy, but in this case think river raft.

LIMNOLOGY:  the scientific study of the organisms living in and around the phenomena of fresh water, especially lakes and ponds, rivers and streams, springs and wetlands.

THALWEG:  a geology term that refers to a line connecting the lowest points of successive cross-sections along the course of a valley or river; for Freshwater Map purposes, it’s the deepest part of the river.

VECTOR:  any quantity with both a magnitude and a direction; e.g. velocity is a vector because it describes both how fast something is moving and in what direction.

VELOCITY:  the speed of something in a given direction, in this case a river; also known as flow.