Landscape architecture

Water decides most of a landscape plan, and German describes where it goes with a word order English does not have. The direction comes after the noun, and the noun goes into the accusative: das Wasser läuft den Hang hinunter, wir gehen die Allee entlang. Put entlang in front instead and it takes the genitive, entlang der Allee, the form a written report prefers. The shortest version fuses noun and direction into a single adverb with no article and no case at all: hangabwärts, hangaufwärts, and in the same way flussabwärts and talwärts. That is the word to look for in a drainage note, because the rest of the design follows it: die Böschung, die Versickerungsmulde at its foot, and the gravel of die wassergebundene Wegedecke, which lets the rain soak in instead of sending it further down.