Fractal Dimension of River Basins Based on Digital Terrain Maps

Abstract

The authors have developed an automatic data processing system for analysis of geomorphologic features of river basins and channel networks, using digital terrain maps (DTM) such as the Digital National Land Information released by the Geological Surveying Institute, the Ministry of Construction. This paper describes the fractal dimension of rivers obtained by using the system and the DTM of ten river basins in Japan with the area of several hundred square kilometers. The relationships are also investigated between the fractal dimension and some characteristic values of channel network used in conventional analyses.