A key component of
NetMap is a software platform we refer to as a “Digital Landscape”. The
digital landscape provides a computer implementation of our conceptual models
of how landscape processes interact over space and time. It provides a
convenient way to look at linkages and interactions between disparate data
and disparate processes.
Integral to the
digital landscape is a synthetic channel network. This is a network derived
from flow directions inferred from digital elevation data. Within the digital
landscape, every point is explicitly linked to the channel network via
surface flow paths. In the digital landscape, the synthetic channel network
provides the spatial framework for linking different processes.
