A GIS-Based Approach in Drainage and Morphometric Analysis of Suvarnavathi River Basin and Sub-watersheds, Karnataka, India
The present case study describes the morphometric analysis and its influence on the hydrology of the Suvarnavathi river basin and its sub-watersheds. ALOS DEM is used to extract slope and drainage layers while GIS software is used in the evaluation of linear, areal and relief aspects of morphometric parameters for 13 sub- watersheds of the entire river catchment area. The dendritic drainage pattern of the basin reveals moderate slopes while sub-parallel pattern shows high relief and structural control, especially along the 7th order trunk river of the basin. The circularity ratio, elongation ratio and form factor represent that the elongated study area is in the youth stage of basin development. Sub-watersheds belonging to high relief and slope show high bifurcation ratio and drainage density indicating areas under structural control. Whereas variation in values indicate the difference in topography. Stream frequency of all sub-watersheds shows a positive correlation with drainage density due to the hard rock lithological structures which reveals that the surface area has moderate permeability and groundwater potential is meagre. These studies are useful to mark the groundwater potential zone and artificial recharge area and plan for watershed management.
Basavarajappa, H.T., Dinakar, S., Sathish, M.V., Nagesh, V., Balasubramanian, A. and M.C. Mnjunatha (2013). Delineation of groundwater potential zones in hard rock terrain of kollegala shear zone (KSZ), south India using remote sensing and GIS. International Journal of Earth Science and Engineering, 6(5): 1185-1194.
Clarke, J.I. (1996). Morphometry from Maps: Essay in Geomorphology. Elsevier Pub. Co. New York, pp. 235-
274.
Dinakar, S., Basavarajappa, H.T. and H. Honne Gowda(2008). Morphometric analysis of sub-watersheds of river Suvarnavathi catchment using GIS Chamarajanagar district, Karnataka. Remote Sensing and GIS Applications,1: 45-53.
Hadley, R.F. and S.A. Schumm (1961). Sediment sources and drainage basin characteristics in upper Cheyenne River basin. US Geological Survey Water-Supply Paper,1531: 198.
Horton, R.E. (1945). Erosional development of streams and their drainage basins; hydro-physical approach to quantitative morphology. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 56(3): 275-370.
Nag, S.K. and S. Chakraborthy (2003). Influence of rock types and structure in the development of drainage network in hard rock area. Journal of Indian Society of Remote Sensing, 31(1): 25-35.
Nirmala, R. and C. Krishnaiah (2019). Evaluation of groundwater quality along Suvarnavathi river, Chamarajanagar district, Karnataka, India. Journal of Centre for Ground Water Studies, 12(1): 50-55.
Saha, A. and P. Singh (2017). Drainage morphometric analysis and water resource management of Hindon river basin, using earth observation data sets. International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, 3(4): 2051-2057.
Schumm, S.A. (1956). Evolution of drainage systems and slopes in badlands at Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 67: 597-646.
Strahler, A.N. (1964). Quantitative geomorphology of drainage and channel networks. In: Fairbridge, R.W.
(Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Geomorphology, Encyclopedia of Earth Science Studies. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 39-73.