Landforms characterization of Saudi Arabia: Towards a geomorphological map

Abstract

Geomorphological mapping became one of the important aspects of landforms depiction, which has been developed from classical field-based to remotely sensed-based observations with or without ground-truthing over the last few decades. The availability of such data is essential for land-use planning as well as for decision-makers. To that end, we have created a simplified SRTM-based map for Saudi Arabia that integrates geology, soil and vegetation information along with related landform datasets such as stream networks. This effort can be considered as a base-map towards facilitating a comprehensive regional scale geomorphological map for the kingdom in the near future. Nevertheless, the correlation between geological features, soil types, and vegetation cover have revealed qualitative morphology of such features and provide insights into the regional relationship between the topography and the origin or evolution of such features. The results show and confirm that most of the topographic features of the land are mainly associated with previous geological processes. Our findings show that there is a prominent relationship between vegetation cover distribution and soil type. However, the correlation between soil morphology and the geological features is subject to further investigation due to the lack of data, though current observations suggest a combination of climate and tectonic control on soil distribution.

Keywords

• Saudi Arabia
• Landforms
• Geomorphology
• Remote Sensing
• GIS
• Geology