Riverscapes Consortium

Documentation Standards

Intended Audience

  • RC - Tool Developers
  • RC - Website/Documentation Contributors

Consistent documentation is fundamental to the riverscapes consortium philosophy. In practical terms this minimally involves the following types of documentation:

The above resources are intended as a reference and guide for RC developers and website contributors.

Best Practice Examples

BRAT - A New Research-Grade Script

In the case of tools or models that represent novel, new and/or significant methodological advances or scientific contributions, the model should also be vetted in the peer-reviewed scholarly literature. For example, the RC BRAT (Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool) beaver dam capacity model (BRAT) was originally vetted in:

However, BRAT’s

Tributary Impact - Implementing a Research Grade Script

By contrast, agorithms and methods that have already been published and vetted, but are simply packaged into an opensource tool for others to use should cite the original author
For example, the Tributary Impact was originally vetted and presented in:

  • Rice SP. 2017. Tributary connectivity, confluence aggradation and network biodiversity. Geomorphology 277 : 6–16. DOI: 10.1016/j.geomorph.2016.03.027

However, the algorithm was coded up to implement and shared as