Determination of catchment characteristics using GIS.

1 Catchment Characteristics

1.1 Study area and its characteristics

Hydrological Description:

For catchment description is necessary to integrate the knowledge about the topography,

land use and soil characteristics, in order to understand the catchment behavior. For

example, the catchment area is quite important to estimate mean response reactions. A

headwater catchment in a mountainous region is expected to react faster than the

following main catchment far downstream in the lowlands. Furthermore land use and soil

characteristics indicate the storage behavior of the catchment. Many of the

characteristics can be linked to form an overall image of the estimated dominant runoff

processes within the catchment.

Technical Tasks:

1.1.1 Delineate the catchment (with no sub catchments), define the river network

(spatial resolution 10km 2 and 30 km 2 ) from the DEM100 (given in spatial

data > topography folder ) and compare the gauge elevation with the data

from NLWKN. NLWKN data is given as

3629101 Wersen 3428637 5799076 228

Station ID Station name X Y Area(km 2 )

.

1.1.2 Compute and discuss the following catchment characteristics:

Topography:

- area (target area, actual area derived from DEM, difference target/actual)

- perimeter

- location of the areal centre x-direction

- location of the areal centre y-direction

- elevation (min, max, mean, standard deviation)

- slope (mean in degree)

- aspect (mean)

Note: To estimate the energy input the aspect can be normalized. Code: 1 = north,

0 = south, east and west = 0.5, in between relative to 0 and 1

River network:

- longest flow path

- river network density based on rivers A ≥ 10 km²

- circular ratio

- length and slope of mean river based on the longest river A ≥ 10 km²

- topographical factor

Land use:

- rel. area settlements, agriculture, forested, wetland and water bodies

Soil:

- ratio of clay, silt and sand (mean)

Climate:

- mean annual value of precipitation and temperature

Details and Resources realated to Project:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vL1Xtb3PQIa2NoQTY3aGVhd2oyNGdJdlVrekdzMnBQdV9N