Morphometric Analysis of Small River Catchments in the City of Kaluga Based on a Digital Cartographic Framework

Abstract

The purpose is to determine the morphometric characteristics of the watersheds of small rivers in Kaluga based on the digital elevation model FABDEM in QGIS. Materials and methods. Topographic basis for the assessment of the morphometric characteristics of the studied rivers was FABDEM. Their determination was performed using such QGIS algorithms as hydrological modeling and morphometric analysis. Results and discussion. Structure of the hydrographic network and geometry of watersheds, the parameters of which are described by the main morphometric characteristics of watercourses (length, river slope) and watersheds (area, height and slope of slopes) were studied in this article. Additional morphometric characteristics (meandering, density of the river network, average width of the watersheds area and coordinates of its center) are determined, and longitudinal profi les of the rivers are constructed. Relatively stable characteristics (area, average height, average slope), established according to literary sources with those measured using the FABDEM digital elevation model, has been compared. It has been found that the diff erences in their defi nition based on the digital elevation model generally exceed 2%. Conclusion. Advantage of using the described method is the automated calculation of morphometric characteristics. Disadvantage is related to the insuffi cient accuracy of the results obtained due to the mismatch in spatial resolution and height. However, this method can be used to quickly obtain estimated information about the morphometric characteristics of the studied watersheds and for a general representation of the relief.