Hydrofabric data
As previously mentioned, the term “hydrofabric” can be used to describe …
1) the flowline –> catchment discretization of the landscape (contra: Semantics are important, I just hate them)
2) a conceptual standard to describe those Semantics as defined by the OGC (“Hydrologic Modeling and River Corridor Applications of HY_Features Concepts” (n.d.)), and
3) The data model used to describe those semantics.
This page deals with the second. See the Hydrofabric data model page for the foundation and theory that this database is intended to represent.
Hydrofabric as datasets
Because everything is done in table space as opposed to geographic space, the operations tend to be lightning fast and more memory efficient and so you are able to scale your analysis much faster than you otherwise could on the same hardware, same timeframe, and therefore same cost. This enables applications like CONUS scale flood mapping, USGS water prediction, and associated hydrofabric operations to be executed on common hardware.