> Yes, what you put into much better words than mine is exactly what I am 
> needing - For a given quadrature point at
> (x,y), find how far the domain extends above (x,y) in y-direction?
> 
> So I am looking to find the y-coordinate of the point which is directly 
> above the (x,y) in question, so that I can find how far it extends above 
> it (by subtracting it from what I am trying to find)

As Jean-Paul already mentioned, this is easy enough if your top surface 
is level (i.e., at the same y value). It is, in general, difficult to 
figure this out on unstructured meshes if the top surface is not level.

The way to do this then is to define a "depth" variable D(x,y). You know 
that D(x,y)=0 at the top surface, and that it grows linearly with depth 
y. So D(x,y) satisfies a differential equation of the form

   d/d(-y) D(x,y) = 1

or equivalently

   d/dy D(x,y) = -1

which you can also write as follows:

  (0,-1) . nabla D(x,y) = 1

So it is an advection equation with the advection velocity being the 
vector pointing straight down. The boundary condition at the "inflow" 
boundary -- which here is the top boundary) is D(x,y)=0.

Then, if you need to know the depth at a given point (x_q,y_q), for 
example at a quadrature point when assembling your linear system, all 
you need to do is evaluate the depth field D(x_q,y_q) that you have 
previously computed.

Best
  W.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wolfgang Bangerth          email:                 [email protected]
                            www: http://www.math.colostate.edu/~bangerth/

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