Analysis of Geomorphologic Properties Extracted from DEMs for Hydrologic Modeling

Abstract

Flow accumulation method is the most common technique used in extracting river networks from digital elevation model (DEM) data. This method allows the extraction of networks with arbitrary density, that is, different threshold areas can be used to generate channel network with different density. Here, the effect of threshold area on width function and area function is examined. The scaling structures of width function and area function are studied using their singularity spectra. With the aid of singularity spectrum, it's easy to identify the differences in river networks resulting from different threshold areas. This paper discusses the stability of width function and area function and the limiting threshold areas for deriving catchment area function.