Rivers

Simulate simulate.rivers

Carves river channels where the water draining through a point exceeds Source area, widening and deepening downstream. Rivers run to the world's edges, crossing hollows at their spill level. Outputs the carved Height, the Water surface, the River mask and a Riverbank mask.

Output with default settings, rendered by LibreTerrain.

Inputs

Port	Type
Terrain	Heightfield

Outputs

Port	Type
Height	Heightfield
Water surface	Heightfield
River	Mask
Riverbank	Mask

Settings

Setting	Default	Range / options	Description
Source area	0.5 km²	0.001 to 10,000 km²	Area that must drain through a point before a river starts there. Smaller values give more, smaller streams.
Width	40 m	0.1 to 5,000 m	Width of the largest rivers (draining 1000 × Source area), in metres. Streams start at a tenth of this.
Depth	4 m	0 to 500 m	Depth of the largest rivers below their water surface, in metres.
Bank width	20 m	0 to 5,000 m	Width of the sloping bank beside each river, and of the Riverbank mask.
Meander	30 m	0 to 1,000 m	How far rivers wander from the valley line, in metres, in bends about 12 times as long. 0 follows the drainage exactly.
Detail size	8 m	1 to 1,000 m	Cell size water is routed at, in metres: about the width of the smallest streams. Smaller is slower. The result is the same at any preview or build resolution.

See also

Hydraulic Erosion · Lakes · Sea · Snow · Thermal Erosion