How does water end up flowing in rivers? As schematized below, it is the result of processes that have taken place in the river basin, also known as a catchment and delineated by a red line in the figure.
The map in the figure below shows the location of 195 hydrologic stations, which can be used to explore the hydrologic regimes of Australian rivers.
The Pacific Ocean sometimes catches a fever in its Eastern tropical part (off the coasts between Central America and Peru): for extended periods of time, its surface waters are abnormally warm.
A dendrogram is a way to visualise objects organised in a hierarchy. It looks like a tree where: the leaves represent the objects of the dataset; the branches link similar leaves according to a given criterion.
Investigating the hydrologic regime of 195 rivers in Australia revealed three types of flow seasonality. At some stations, the wettest period occurs during one particular season (winter or summer), whereas at others, similar flows are observed all year round.
Sounds triggered by events The map below shows the main flood events of 2019, their duration and the size of the flood-affected area (for further discussion of this dataset, see the post Sonification techniques: mapping data to pitch and volume).
Plotting hydrologic regimes Most hydrologic studies start by determining the average quantity of water in rivers and how it is distributed throughout the year.
Mapping data to visual or auditory properties A common visualization technique is to use the color or size of symbols to represent data. The bubble map below shows an example.
What is data sonification? Sonification refers to the transformation of data into sound, using some algorithmic process. Here are three examples worth a thousand words:
