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Geomorphometry and fractal dimension of a riverine badland in Maharashtra

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Journal of the Geological Society of India

Abstract

One of the most serious limitations in studying the surface morphometry of a badland landscape is the nonavailability of a very fine resolution data which is essential for such types of studies. Local relief of most of the badlands in India and also from other parts of the world exhibit limited relief amplitude, often within a few meters. The paper reports a case study carried out in a riverine badland formed along the Western Deccan Trap Region. An attempt has been made in the present paper to extract the morphometric variables of the landscape from the DEMs derived from a high resolution field generated data, because the accuracy of the DEM derived values are dependent on the pixel resolution of the DEM from which they are generated. The size of the pixel resolution should be fixed differently for different landscapes depending on the landscape process in the area. The local relief of the area is around 10 m and for such types of landscapes the topographical maps and also the web-available DEMs are of very coarse resolutions which are not suitable for the analysis. Therefore two well defined tributary catchments were chosen from the area under investigation and theodolite surveys were carried out, contours were generated with 10 cm interval, DEMs were derived by using Arc GIS software. SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) 90 m resolution data were utilized to generate DEM for the whole basin. Hypsometric and the drainage basin parameters were extracted from these data by using the same software. Fractal dimension of the whole basin and the sample basins were also obtained for the same data. The morphometric data generated were used to understand the geomorphic processes operating in the area.

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Correspondence to Veena Joshi.

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Joshi, V., Tambe, D. & Dhawade, G. Geomorphometry and fractal dimension of a riverine badland in Maharashtra. J Geol Soc India 73, 355–370 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12594-009-0015-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12594-009-0015-y

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