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Quantitative Remote Sensing Analysis of the Geomorphological Development of the Lijiang River Basin, Southern China

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Abstract

The Lijiang River Basin is associated with a classic karst terrain characterized by conical hills that are referred to as karst towers. To date, few quantitative studies have been conducted on the geomorphological development of the river basin, in part, because it covers a large area of about 5800 km2, making it difficult to carry out a comprehensive quantitative analysis using traditional methods. This study using Landsat-8 OLI images and a digital elevation model firstly assesses the longitudinal profile of the Lijiang River, calculates the average bifurcation (bifurcation) ratio of the basin’s drainage network, and conducts a hypsometric (elevation) analysis of the Lijiang Basin. The stage of geomorphological development is quantitatively constrained. It is concluded that the Lijiang River is currently in the old stage of geomorphological development, the stream systems in the Lijiang River Basin are in a relatively balanced developmental stage and the geomorphological development is dominated by the old-stage (monadnock) landforms.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for constructive reviews by anonymous reviewer and editorial handling by Senthil Kumar that led to clarification and improvement of the manuscript. This study was jointly supported by NSFC funds (No. 41772059), Guangxi National Natural Science Foundation (No. 2018GXNSFFA281009).

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Correspondence to Zhiqiang Jia.

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Jia, Z., Liu, X., Cai, X. et al. Quantitative Remote Sensing Analysis of the Geomorphological Development of the Lijiang River Basin, Southern China. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 47, 737–747 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-019-00964-0

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