Grand Canyon Rivers

Flow Accumulation · 30 m DEM

What you're looking at

The Colorado River drains over 600,000 km² of upstream land before reaching this canyon. Most tributaries shown here are ephemeral — dry most of the year, only flowing after rain. Bright Angel and Havasu are notable exceptions: spring-fed perennial creeks. Pairs with /parks/grand_canyon.

Watershed Stats

SourceUSGS 3DEP 30 m

Stream segments8,301 (vector)

Max Strahler order7

Pairs with/parks/grand_canyon

AlgorithmD8 + Strahler

ToolWhitebox Tools

Major Rivers

Colorado / Phantom RanchS7
Little Colorado confluenceS5
Bright Angel CreekS3
Havasu CreekS3

How it works

The Colorado mainstem reads at Strahler order 7 here — most upstream accumulation comes from outside this 1.4° AOI (Rocky Mountain snowmelt). Within the canyon itself, you see the side canyon tributaries joining the trunk — each one a few hundred to few thousand cells of accumulation, eroded into the same 2-billion-year rock sequence shown on the elevation map.

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