Can you download data from the River Index?

[Thomas Reyes]

Hello,

Is there a way to download the river index data with simple attributes (i.e. river name, class) as a .kml. .shp or anything else? 

I am coordinating vegetation field surveys in a region with many rivers, and seeing this data on our planning maps would be great for planning some riparian surveys.

[Foampile]

this is somewhat similar to my question right below. I wish AW provided all its data publicly through a RESTful API, like USGS does

[Kevin Colburn]

This is not a service we offer. 

[Rob]

Thomas & 'Foampile' :

There is a significant difference between USGS and AW.

USGS is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior, thus is largely funded by federal taxpayer dollars. All data thus created thus bears a certain 'obligation' to be publicly available.

AW is a non-profit organization, funded by members dues, charitable contributions, and other private sources. All data is the result of volunteers contributions, thus should be considered proprietary information.

[Skip Morris]

On Thursday, May 1, 2025 at 5:14:20 PM UTC-4 Rob wrote:

All data is the result of volunteers contributions, thus should be considered proprietary information

Actually that's not correct.

Factual information (ie, GPS locations, lists of rivers, etc.) cannot be copyrighted.

Additionally, crowd-sourced information on the internet (eg, descriptions of rivers, rapids, etc) is considered copyright of the individual entering the information, not the parent web site.

/Skip

[pyo...@runbox.com]

Site terms are here: https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Wiki/aw:tos#user_contributions_and_site_content

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[Rob]

Skipper (et.al.): Yes, thanks ... my use of the words "proprietary information" was technically incorrect terminology, though what you expressed seems to have subtleties/incongruities to it as well.

I totally understand that generic information about locations (put-in, take-out, etc) cannot be copyrighted, since anyone can independently come up with their own list of those, and there will be fairly considerable duplication. However, when a volunteer picks a point for any location using the AW programming, that point is described with lat/lng coordinates down to an almost absurd 14 decimal places! Even at just the fifth decimal place, each 0.00001 represents 3.64 feet, making it unlikely that any two individuals would come up with exactly the same 5 decimal place coordinates for any one location, and making odds absolutely astronomical they'd match for virtually every location detailed.

Similarly, many reach names are likely to be fairly obvious and common (especially where there are improved put-ins and take-outs). However, on smaller runs, without improved access, it is unlikely that any two individuals would independently come up reach names that would be identical, down to their recommended put-in and take-out, when it's just some point on a remote road. It's also unlikely that someone in one state would have traveled so extensively, to every state in the country, and would have explored rivers and creeks which are small and seldom runnable, as to be able to come anywhere close to very nearly replicate the entirety of rivers detailed on AW for a given state, much less the whole country.

That said, there is at least one website (https://www.riverfacts.com/ and possibly others) which does so! A note on the bottom of each river page claims “Some content, including Reach Name, Class, Coordinates, and Length, comes from American Whitewater with permission.” So, I'm wondering who gave such permission, whether it was somehow given before the aforementioned policy was firmly in place, or just what this situation is.

(BTW, that site has a lot of 'value added' info such as nearby rivers, ski areas, motels, etc., but then also has some inane boilerplate info, such as “the beautiful way the water current moves down the stream are reasons enough to come here and paddle”, “Coming to this river is always a good idea”, and saying that an area “gets a common amount of annual rainfall” … wow, really?)

[Paul Martzen]

Riverfacts website and, I think, a couple others just steal information, then monetize it by adding a bunch of advertisements and links.   I have never heard of them getting permission and it is a lot easier to say they have permission than to bother getting permission. 

The weird phrases seem to be filler that might fit the activity being discussed.  I assume that website uses some AI type method of automatically generating such phrases.  I have noticed that they include as many common search terms as possible to maximize search results.  I think they are kind of impressive when you realize they are just trying to get the maximum amount of clicks for the least amount of work.  I assume every sport or interest group now has myriad such websites scraping other websites to generate income by pretending to be  a legitimate website whiles selling schlock.

Search for a food recipe and you can usually find a number of different websites using the exact same language.