The identification of drainage basins borders at local spatial scale

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify the drainage basins borders in the study area of ​​the Pechora natural reserve and its environs – the Kuryinsky and Yakshinsky forest districts. The input data for the identification of drainage basins borders of the study area were freely available ASTER GDEM Version 2, GMTED2010 and the hydrographic network data of 1: 1 000 000 scale. The processing and analysis of the input data was carried out using two geoinformation systems: SAGA GIS and ArcGIS Desktop. This study implied the preparation of DEM data and the identification of drainage basins borders on the study area. The preparation of DEM data included harmonization of DEMs spatial resolution, the filling of local depressions and flow direction calculation. The identification of drainage basins borders is carried out in two ways using the “Basin” and “Watershed” tools of the “Spatial Analyst” module of the geographic information system ArcGIS Desktop. The analysis of the results indicated that “Basin” tool allocates only the boundaries of the large rivers basins – Pechora and Ilych. To identify the drainage basins borders of not only large, but small rivers, the “Watershed” tool is suitable if complemented with raster data on the points of the mouth.

Keywords

• basin analysis
• gis technologies
• dem
• pechora natural reserve