Making the river widths dimensionally accurate by the scale of the map
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The map linked https://www.flickr.com/photos/nelsonminar/8747607969/in/photostream/ is currently representing the Platte river as roughly ~250 miles in width.
Vertically from the southern tip of TX to the northern border of the US there are roughly ~1585 miles.
The pixel distance on the map for that same path is 936 px for the 2048x1152 image. The pixel distance from north to south (parallel to the mile measurement) for the Platte River is 6px in the thickest part.
That would mean that in pixels, the plate river is 1/156th of the distance from the southern tip of TX to the northern border, while ~1585 miles / 156 means that the river is represented as being ~264 miles wide.
It seems that this map is largely overestimating the overall river density (width) for the US. The data for width or volume seems to be there, as there are rivers of differing widths.
Could you produce a version that is geographically representative of the actual widths of the rivers, it may have to be a very high resolution but I would be interested to see it.
It seems as if the Strahler number does not have the data density to show this information as it only sorts relative to the parent and not to the actual size.
Yeah, as you note the Strahler number I'm using has nothing to do with the geographic scale of the river. I went looking for a dataset for river width and couldn't find one.
The National Geographic World of Rivers map is a little closer to what you're looking for. Their lines are a function of the river flow. It's worth buying a copy on eBay if you like this kind of thing.