The Stream

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

One of the most important aspects of physical geography is the study of the world's natural environment and resources - one of which is water. Because this area is so important, geographers, geologists, and hydrologists alike use stream order to study and measure the size of the world's waterways.

The stream order hierarchy was officially proposed in 1952 by Arthur Newell Strahler, a geoscience professor at Columbia University in New York City, in his article “Hypsometric (Area Altitude) Analysis of Erosional Topology.” The article, which appeared in the Geological Society of America Bulletin outlined the order of streams as a way to define the size of perennial (a stream with water its bed continuously throughout the year) and recurring (a stream with water in its bed only part of the year) streams.