Introducing QuickChi, a web application for near-global, exploratory, longitudinal river profile analysis

Stream profile analysis has been used extensively in the field of tectonic geomorphology. In the past, exploration of stream profiles, including χ-elevation profiles, has required downloading and processing Digital Elevation Models for specific areas, which limits the scope of exploratory analysis. Presented here is a web application designed to analyze stream profiles at 90m resolution at a near-global scale. Based on the Hydrosheds (Wickel et al., 2007) 90m drainage direction, as well as computed d8 drainage direction and void-filled DEMs, the app allows users to quickly query downstream from selected points anywhere within ±60 degrees latitude, in order to interactively analyze corresponding stream profiles in both distance and χ space, where χ is a metric that is proportional to the presumed steady-state shape of the stream profile (Perron and Royden, 2013). QuickChi is open source, and although currently it is designed as an exploratory tool, more functions can be easily added via community contributions and/or from existing toolsets.