Articles | Volume 6, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-6-293-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-6-293-2017
Research article
 | 
10 Aug 2017
Research article |  | 10 Aug 2017

Understanding of morphometric features for adequate water resource management in arid environments

Mohamed Elhag, Hanaa K. Galal, and Haneen Alsubaie

Abstract. Hydrological characteristics such as topographic parameters, drainage attributes, and land use/land cover patterns are essential to evaluate the water resource management of a watershed area. In the current study, delineation of a watershed and calculation of morphometric characteristics were undertaken using the ASTER global digital elevation model (GDEM). The drainage density of the basin was estimated to be very high, which indicates that the watershed possesses highly permeable soils and low to medium relief. The stream order of the area ranges from first to sixth order, showing a semi-dendritic and radial drainage pattern that indicates heterogeneity in textural characteristics, and it is influenced by structural characteristics in the study area. The bifurcation ratio (Rb) of the basin ranges from 2.0 to 4.42, and the mean bifurcation ratio is 3.84 in the entire study area, which signifies that the drainage pattern of the entire basin is controlled much more by the lithological and geological structure. The elongation ratio is 0.14, which indicates that the shape of the basin has a narrow and elongated shape. A land use/land cover map was generated by using a Landsat-8 image acquired on 10 August 2015 and classified to distinguish mainly the alluvial deposit from the mountainous rock.

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Short summary
This article focus on morphometric features and their role in water resource management at the basin scale. The estimation of the features requires an adequate understanding of DEM feature extractions. The findings of the current study will help decision makers to improve the adopted water resource management strategies in similar geographic locations.