6467 Strahler Order
In geology, a river system can be represented as a directed graph. Each river segment is an edge; with
the edge pointing the same way the water flows. Nodes are either the source of a river segment (for
example, a lake or spring), where river segments merge or diverge, or the mouth of the river.
Note: The number in a box is the order. The number in a circle is the node number.
The Strahler order of a river system is computed as follows.
• The order of each source node is 1.
• For every other node, let i be the highest order of all its upstream nodes. If just one upstream
node has order i, then this node also has order i. If two or more upstream nodes have order i,
then this node has order i + 1.
The order of the entire river system is the order of the mouth node. In this prob