Topological significance of stream labeling methods

Abstract

Several stream ordering and labeling methods have been proposed in order to describe some aspects of the geometry of river networks; namely, Horton's, Strahler's, Milton-Ollier's, Scheidegger's ordering techniques, and the STORET location coding system. This paper analyzes the topological significance of each of these methods, that is, the amount of information on the topological structure of the net that they can yield. Horton's and Strahler's ordering methods give only numerical information on the distribution of channels among different classes (orders); Milton-Ollier's and Scheidegger's methods give more information, from the topological point of view, as the former assigns a unique label to each stream segment in a network, and the latter takes into account all junctions; the STORET system labels interconnections between channels, but does not use the concept of order and is therefore more suitable for other purposes than for the theoretical study of river nets. © 1968 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.