California Rivers

Flow Accumulation · 30 m DEM

What you're looking at

California has three independent drainage systems: the Central Valley (Sacramento + San Joaquin → SF Bay → Pacific), the Klamath in the north, and the Great Basin on the east side of the Sierra crest (water doesn't reach any ocean — drains into Owens Lake, Mono Lake, etc).

Watershed Stats

SourceUSGS 3DEP 30 m

Stream segments223,725 (vector)

Max Strahler order8

NotableSierra crest divides Pacific & Great Basin

AlgorithmD8 + Strahler

ToolWhitebox Tools

Major Rivers

Sacramento R. (Sacramento)S8
San Joaquin R. (Stockton)S7
Klamath at the PacificS7
Tuolumne (Sierra)S5
LA River (basin)S4

How it works

The Sierra Nevada crest is the dominant feature — it's a tilted granite block, gentle on the west, sheer on the east. Most of California's water originates as Sierra snowmelt and drains west to the Central Valley. Southern California has very little natural drainage — the LA River is mostly artificial channel.

Same engine, any scale: this is the same pipeline that renders a 160-acre RTK survey at sub-meter resolution. Only the bounding box changes.

Sources & tools listed at /data