Regional watershed characterization and classification with river network analyses

Abstract

In order to understand and manage a hydrological region, one usually needs to comprehensively characterize the watersheds (basins) and their river networks. This usually and primarily involves analysis of hydrological and geomorphological properties of the watershed derived from the digital terrain model (DTM), but this approach neglects the information content of the associated river networks. In this study, we used a combination of traditional DTM and original river network-related indices to the watersheds of an understudied region, Haiti. We also used Monte Carlo simulations to estimate index confidence levels of these indices. Compared to commonly used indices, the network indices provided valuable information that could then be used in statistical analyses as a way to identify the dominant features of the country's watershed morphology.On this basis, we identified four watershed groups in Haiti: (i) high, elongated watersheds, (ii) lowlands, with sinuous networks and relatively slow runoff, (iii) high watersheds with dendritic networks, and (iv) lowlands with high downstream-upstream contrast in properties and rapid runoffs. We argue that river network features provide complementary information in terms of flow topology, highly relevant to characterize contrasting relief countries, such as Haiti. Hence, more exhaustive characterization of watersheds would predictably benefit from the approach outlined in this paper.

Digital Elevation Model Quality Assessment Methods: A Critical Review

“…A typical rule is provided by Horton's law, also based on the fractal hypothesis, which states that if the river streams are classified by Strahler orders [118], the total number of streams of a given order decreases in a geometric progression when the order increases [119]. In other terms, the logarithm of the total number of streams of order n decreases linearly as a function of n. Figure 10 illustrates an interesting contribution of Horton's law in a study of the quality of the Topodata DEM obtained by oversampling SRTM in Brazil [120].…”

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“…Распространен анализ ЦМР для выявления водосборных бассейнов [Lindsay, 2016c;Liu et al, 2020a], их классификации по гидрологическим характеристикам [Gaucherel et al, 2017;Gao et al, 2018] [Wing et al, 2019]. Анализ ЦМР сверхвысокого разрешения позволяет исследовать сезонные поверхностные микропотоки рассолов и сопутствующие изменения поверхности солончаков [Bhardwaj et al, 2019b].…”

Flow, Sediment, and Morpho-Dynamics of River Confluence in Tidal and Non-Tidal Environments

“…As aforementioned, the cohesive sediment of mud (silt and clay) has completely different dynamics than non-cohesive sediment, consisting of sand. In a tidal environment, cohesive sediment movement is somehow affected by the flocculation, leading to a lower settling velocity [75]. The difference arises from the electrochemical interactions of clay and silt particles, so the cohesiveness of sediment depends on their contents and also the salty water concentration.…”