Field Guide to Rivers & Streams: Discovering Running Waters and Aquatic Life

The purpose of this book is to reveal the wonderful stories of aquatic
science to a mainstream audience and convey a deeper understanding of
rivers. Learning science always works best with an interactive, hands-on
approach. Thus this book also aims to enable interactive lotic science.
Unprecedented advances in data technology are driving novel innovations
in every branch of science, especially environmental sciences. For example,
devices smaller than a fist can track temperature, oxygen concentrations, or
salinity levels every minute and send data to scientists over wireless
networks in real time. Although such tools might not prove useful to most
non-scientists, others are fun, informative, and accessible to river
aficionados willing to explore tools online. Agencies tasked with managing
ecosystems support web applications that allow anyone to map a watershed,
track flow levels, or identify organisms living within just about any lotic
system, large or small. Wherever possible, this book briefly introduces such
tools in instructional sidebars.