DEMs are important for modelling

Spatial Informatics
Lecture 17: DEM and Hydrological Modelling

Dr. K. S. Rajan
Lab for Spatial Informatics, IIIT Hyderabad Oct 31st, 2011
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Data Model Based on Behaviour

Follow a drop of water from where it falls on the land, to the stream, and all the way to the ocean.

Integrating Data Inventory using a Behavioural Model

Relationships between objects linked by tracing path of water movement

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the ground surface elevation at each point

Digital Elevation Grid a grid of cells (square or rectangular) in some coordinate system having land surface elevation as the value stored in each Slide 5 K S Rajan cell.

Flow Direction Grid

2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 4 4 2 4 2 2 1 4 4 4 4 2 2 2 1

Contributing Area Grid

It creates a grid of accumulated flow to each cell, by accumulating the weight for all cells that flow into each down slope cell.
4 4 4 8 4 2 4 1 4 8 8 8 4 4 2 1 8 4 8 4 8 8 4 8 4 4 8 4 8 8

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 1 3 5 4 1 1

0 2 3 4

0 1 5 7 4

0 2 0 3 0 6

0 1 2 0 4 0 2

0 0 1 2 0 1 0 0

1 19 5

0 25

1 34

4 16

4 13 14 55

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Flow Accumulation The outputFlow Direction of FLOWACCUMULATION would then represent the amount of rain that would flow through each cell, assuming that all rain became runoff and there was no interception, evapotranspiration, or loss to groundwater. This could also be viewed as the amount K S Rajan that 12 of rain Slide fell on the surface, upslope from each cell.

Flow accumulation Algorithms

D8:
uses 3x3 filter to calculate direction of flow as steepest downhill slope

Flow accumulation grids

Flow accumulation (upslope area > 100)

Rho8:
statistical version of D8 adding a uniformly distributed stochastic element

Monte Carlo simulation of D8:

repeat D8 x 100 and use most probable result

FD8 and FRho8:

modifications allowing flow dispersion to more than one downhill cell on a slope weighted basis Flow accumulation (upslope area > 1000)
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Calculating stream Order

Flat area problems
It assigns a numeric order to segments of a grid representing branches of a linear network.
Two Methods: STRAHLER: the method of stream ordering proposed by Strahler in 1952. Stream order only increases when streams of the same order intersect. Therefore the intersection of a first order and second order link will remain a second order link rather than create a third order link. This is the default. SHREVE: the method of stream ordering by magnitude proposed by Shreve in 1967. All links with no tributaries are assigned a magnitude (order) of 1. Magnitudes are additive downslope. When two links intersect, their magnitudes are added and assigned to the downslope link.

high relief head water areas good channel delineation

low relief basin outpour areas poor channel delineation Slide 16 K S Rajan

Stream order - Strahler

Stream order - Shreve

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points

Handling convergent drainage

The problem with pits
closed depressions in DEM real or artefacts of DEM data model? often found in narrow valley bottoms where width of flood plain < cellsize of DEM also found in low relief areas due to interpolation errors disrupt drainage topology

To remove or not remove?

fill in to obtain continuous flow direction network

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Creating a hydrologically correct DEM

DEM FLOWDIRECTION

Drainage Network Generated from DEM using D-8 Technique

In medium river basin: From DEM of 100m resolution

SINK
Are there any sinks? No

Yes

FILL

Delineate watersheds

Delineate stream network

WATERSHED

BASIN

FLOWACCUMULATION

Threshold FLOWACCUMULATION output streamnet = con (flowacc > 100, 1)

DEM from 1:50,000 Scale DEM Contour Map from 1:50,000 Scale + Spot elevations Contour Map in lower flat areas Agno River Basin, Philippines

STREAMLINE

STREAMLINK

STREAMORDER K S Rajan Slide 24

Generated Rivers Actual Rivers

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Further improvement of DEM

But, improvement up to what level can be done? Is it always possible to obtain high precision topography data for model application? If not, is there any alternative way?

-Yes, there are a few techniques to improve topographical data for generating hydrologically correct DEM (from manual to automatic) - One of such methods is drainage-enforced algorithm

River network from drainage-enforced DEM

Simulated flood inundation

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Simulated flood inundation with drainage-enforced DEM

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Algorithmic issues of Flow Accumulation

Paper that will be discussed (READ it) is Simple I/O-effcient ow accumulation on grid terrains
http://www.win.tue.nl/~hermanh/stack/hj-flowongrids-massive2009-paper.pdf Issues 1. Spatial Data are Large 2. Data Access and its effect on the Naive Algorithm

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