Chapter 1 Introduction

This chapter describes the background and approach used in the development of the FluvialGeomorph project.

1.1 Purpose

• Document the methods used in FluvialGeomorph
• Establish a common set of concepts and terminology between fluvial geomorphologists, geospatial analysts, and biologists/ecologists
• define terms
• Describe tools
• Describe products

1.2 FluvialGeomorph Goals

• Develop reproducible methods for analyzing streams using remote sensing data
• Develop a set of fluvial feature extraction tools
• Develop methods that take advantage of the wealth on new LiDAR survey data

1.3 Design Philosophy

• Open source
• Establish a framework to build upon
• Combine best-of-breed tools
• Opinionated API
• Standardize reporting products

1.4 Previous Work

• River Bathymetry Toolkit
• TauDEM

1.5 Other Resources

• How to use the tools is described in the user manual
• Application of this approach is described in other technical reports.