Abstract
Rivers, as force vectors, play an important role in landform changes and have a significant impact on the human exploitation of their surroundings. Investigation on the characteristics and evolution of rivers is one of the topics of river geomorphology. On the other hand, determining the fractal dimension is very important in understanding the behavior and predicting changes in river evolution course. This study was conducted to analyze the relationship between geomorphological characteristics and fractal dimension of the Dinvar river basin. To achieve the above goal, the required data were extracted from topographic maps 1:50,000, geology 1:1,000,000, digital elevation model (DEM) with a pixel size of 12.5 × 12.5 m and also Google Earth software. To conduct this research, in the first step the streams map and the boundaries of the Dinvar basin prepared in the Google Earth software environment. In the second step, the stream ordering was done using Strahler method and the boundaries of the basins were drawn at the end of the stream with a rank of six and the Dinvar basin was divided into two basins, north and south. In the third step, fractal dimensions of rivers and faults were calculated by fractal tree, Turcotte and capacity dimension methods. Morphometric indices include basin asymmetry, shape factor, compactness coefficient, river frequency, texture ratio, elongation ratio, basin relief, basin slope, ruggedness number, drainage density, relief ratio, bifurcation ratio, length to width ratio, and rank to length ratio of streams were calculated. In the present study, the fractal dimensions of the streams in the northern and southern basins based on box counting and Turcotte, fractal tree were 1.56–1.59, 1.26–1.25 and 1.79–1.95, respectively. The fractal dimensions of the faults for the northern and southern basins were in the ranges of 1–1.12 and 1.02–1.14, respectively. Shapiro–Wilk test was used to evaluate the normality of the data. After the calculations related to normalization, the means were compared between the two groups of northern and southern tectonics. The results showed that the morphometric indices on the small and large scales are influenced by lithology and tectonics, respectively.
Similar content being viewed by others
Code availability
Not applicable.
Availability of data and material
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
References
Alaee Taleghani M, Homayoni S (2012) Dinvar basin flood zoning relying on the geomorphologic characteristics. Geogr Environ Sustain 1(1):37–49
Allameh Moheb M (2005) Morphology, Physiography, and Morphometry of Quaternary sediment of Dasht-e-Sanghar. M.Sc in Geomorphology, Kermanshah, Razi University. In Persian
ArizaV A, Jiménez-Hornero F, Gutiérrez de Ravé E (2013) Multi-fractal analysis applied to the study of the accuracy of DEM-based stream derivation. Geomorphology 197:85–95
Bahrami Sh (2013) Analyzing the drainage system anomaly of Zagros basins: implications for active tectonics. Tectonophysics 608:914–928
Beer T, Borgas M (1993) Horton’s law and the Fractal nature of streams. Water Resour Res 29(5):1475–1487
Bishop P, Hoey TB, Jansen JD, Artza IL (2005) Knickpoint recession rates and catchments area: the case of uplifted rivers in Scotland. Earth Surf Proc Land 30:767–778
Brierley G, Fryir K (2005) Geomorphology and River Management: Applications of the River Styles. Blackwell Publishing DOI 10(1002):9780470751367
Brookes AI (1989) The physical geography. Geomorphology, and Late Quaternary history of the Mahidasht project area, Qara Su Basin, central west Tran. Royal Doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.3340050308
Bull WB, McFadden LD (1977) Tectonic geomorphology north and south of the Garlock fault, California. In: Doehering. D.O. (Ed.). Geomorphology in Arid Regions. Routledge, London, pp. 115–137.
Burrough PA (1981) Fractal dimensions of landscape and other environment data. Nature 294:240–242. https://doi.org/10.1038/294240a0
Chen YC, Sung QC, Chen CN, Jean JS (2006) Variations in Tectonic activities of the central and southwestern Foothills, Taiwan, Inferred from River hack profile terr. Atmos Ocean Science 17:563–578
Chen CY, Sung QC, Cheng KY (2003) Along-strike variations of morphotectonic features in the Western Foothills of Taiwan: tectonic implications based on stream-gradient and hypsometric analysis. Geomorphology 56:109–137
Ciccacci S, Fredi P, Lupia Palmieri E, Pugliese F (1986) Indirect evaluation of erosion entity in drainage basins through geomorphic, climatic and hydrological parameters, international geomorphology, pp.233- 248.
Consulting engineers of Saman Ab Sarzamin (2009) justification and watershed studies of renewable natural resources of Dinvar basin. agricultural jahad, organization of forests, rangelands and watershed of Iran. In Persian
De Bartolo SG, Gabriele S, Gaudio R (2000) Multifractal behavior of river networks. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 4(1):105–112
Elmizadeh H, Mahpeykar O (2017) Fractal Analysis in Carinariid River Using Box-Counting Method. Geographic Space 17(19):255–270 (In Persian)
Eshraghi SA, Jafarian MB, Eglimi B (1996) Marginal report of the Sunqur sheet (1/100000). Geological and Mineral Exploration Organization of Iran. In Persian
Font M, Amorese D, Lagarde J L (2010) Dem and GIS Analysis of the Stream Gradient Index to Evaluate Effects of Tectonics. Geomorphology, pp. 172–180.
Giaconia F, Rea GB, Martinez JMM, Azañón JM, Peña JVP, Romero JP (2012) Geomorphic evidence of active tectonics in the Sierra Alhamilla (eastern Betics,SE Spain). Geomorphology, pp. 145–146.
Guarneri P, Pirrotta C (2008) the response of drainage basins to the late Quaternary tectonic in the Sicilian side of the Messina Strait (NE Sicily). Geomorphology 95:260–273
Habibapour Gatabi K, Safari Shali R (2009) Comprehensive Manual for Using SPSS in survey Researches (quantitative data analysis). Loya Publications, Tehran (In Persian)
Hamdouni RE, Irigaray C, Fernandez T, Chacon J, keller E A, (2008) Assessment of o relative active tectonic, South west border of the Sierra Nevada (Southern Spain). Geomorphology 96:150–173
Hare PW, Gardner TW (1985) Geomorphic indiators of vertical neotectonism along converging plate margins, Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica. In M. Morisawa, IT Hack (eds). Tectonic Geomorphology, Proc. of the 15th Annual Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium, Allen & Unwin, Boston.
Hergarten S (2002) Self-organized criticality in earth system. Springer, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04390-5
Horton RE (1945) Erosional development of streams and their drainage basins Hydro-physical approach to quantitative morphology. Bull Geol Soc America 56:275–370
Jami M, Khatib M, Moridi Farimani A, Mazlum GH (2013) Fractal geometry of faults and seismicity of the North-East of Iran. J Nat Environ Hazards 2(3):17–28 (In Persian)
Joo-Cheol K (2015) Fractal Tree Analysis of Drainage Patterns. Water Resour Manag. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-014-0869-7
Kale VS, Shejwalkar N (2008) Uplift along the western margin of the Deccan Basalt Province: Is there any geomorphometric evidence? J Earth Syst Sci 117:959–971. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-008-0081-3
Karam A, Saberi M (2016) Fractal dimension calculation in drainage basins and its relationship with some geomorphological characteristics of the basin (Case study: North Tehran basinss). Quantitat Geomorphol Res 4(3):153–167 (In Persian)
Keller EA, Pinter N (1996) Active Tectonics Earthquakes, Uplift, and Landscape. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, p 338
Khalifeh Soltani AS, Alavi SA, Ghassemi MR (2016) The role of geological structures in fractal dimension of fractures and drainages in Southwestern Lenjan-Isfahan. Scientif Quarter J Geosci 26(101):45–56 (In Persian)
Khosravi A, Sepehr A, Abdollahzadeh Z (2017) Fractal behavior and its relationship with hydromorphometric characteristics over catchments of binaloud Northern Hillslopes. Hydrogomorphology 3(9):1–20 (In Persian)
Kim J, Jung K (2015) Fractal Tree Analysis of Drainage Patterns. Water Resour Manag. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-014-0869-7
La Barbera P, Rosso R (1989) on the fractal dimansion of stream network. Water Resour Res 25(4):735–741
Larue JP (2008) Effect of tectonics and lithology on long profiles of 16 rivers of the southern Central Massif border between the Aude and the Orb (France). Geomorphology 93:343–367
Luirei KA, Bhakuni SA, Kothyari GCB (2015) Drainage response to active tectonics geomorphology across the Himalayan frontal Thrust, Kumaun Himalaya. Geomorphology 239:58–72
Mandelbrot B (1967) How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension. Sci New Series 156(3775):636–638
Mandelbrot B (1982) The fractal geometry of of nature. New York: WH freeman. Pages 648.
Meng X, Zhang P, Li J, Ma C, Liu D (2020) The linkage between box-counting and geomorphic fractal dimensions in the fractal structure of river networks: the junction angle. Hydrol Res 51(6):1397–1408. https://doi.org/10.2166/nh.2020.082
Nathaniel A, LiftonClement GC (1992) Tectonic, climatic and lithologic influences on landscape fractal dimension and hypsometry: implications for landscape evolution in the San Gabriel Mountains. California Geomorphol 5(1–2):77–114
Nautiyal MD (1994) Morphometric analysis of drainage basin, district Dehradun Uttar Pradesh. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 22(4):252–262
Nayyeri, H. (2010), Analysis of dynamic and channel pattern in the daring basin of Mahabad river, Thesis compiled for Ph.D degree in Physical Geography, University of Tabriz, Iran. In Persian
Nikora VI (1991) Fractal structures of river plan forms. Water Resour Res 27:1327–1333
Pasand SA, Khanlari GR, Mohammadi SD (2004) Application of fractal Geometry on the Exploration of faults (case study Tunnels Golab) International conference on earthquake (A Memorial of Bam Disaster) Kerman, Iran
Pirrotta C, Barbano MS, Monaco C (2016) Evidence of active tectonics in southern Calabria (Italy) by geomorphic analysis: The examples of the Catona and Petrace rivers. Italian J Geosci 135(1):142–156
Prasad G (2007) Trends and Techniques of Geomorphology. Published by Discovery Publhshing House.
Psomiadis E, Charizopoulos N, Soulis KX, Efthimiou N (2020) Investigating the correlation of tectonic and morphometric characteristics with the hydrological response in a greek River catchment using earth observation and geospatial analysis techniques. J Geosci. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences10090377
Puente CE, Castillo PA (1996) On the Fractal structure of networks and dividers within a watershed. J Hydrol 187:173–181
Ramírez Herrera MT (1998) Geomorphic assessment of active tectonics in the Acambay graben, Mexican Volcanic Belt. Earth Surf Process Land Froms 23(4):317–332
Renzo R, Baldassare B (1991) Fractal relation of mainstream length to Catchment area in river networks. Water Resour Res 27(3):381–387
Roach D, Fowler A (1993) Dimensionality analysis of patterns: fractal measurements. Comput Geosci 19(6):849–869
Rodríguez Iturbe I, Rinaldo A, Rigon R, Bras RL, Marani A, Ijjász Vásquez EJ (1992) Energy Dissipation, Runoff Production, and the Three-Dimensional Structure of River Basins. Water Resour Res 28(4):1095–1103
Sadr AH, Alipoor R, Ghamarian S (2018) Analysis (Investigating) the role of active structures of tectonic in fractal dimension of fractures and drainages of the Hassanabad fault zone (SWQazvin). Tectonics 2(5):3–14 (In Persian)
Smith K (1996) Environmental Hazards Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster, 1 edition. Routledge, UK
Sowparinka M, Jairaj PG (2014) Implication of Fractal Dimension on Properties of Rivera and River Basins. Intern J Civil Eng Technol. 5(12):155–164
Strahler AN (1964) Quantitative geomorphology of drainage basin and channel networks. In: Chow VT (ed) Handbook of applied hydrology. McGraw Hill Book Co., New York, pp 4–76
Tarboton DG, Bras RL, Rodriguez Iturbe I (1988) The Fractal nature of river networks. Water Resour 24(8):1317–1322
Turcotte DL (1992) Fractal and Chaos in Geology and Geophysics. Geophysics Combridge University Press, Combridge: pages: 221, ISBN 0 521 412706.
Turcotte DL (1997) Fractal and Chaos in Geology and Geophysics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p 398
Vijith H, Satheesh R (2006) GIS based morphometric analysis of two major upland sub-watersheds of Meenachil river in Kerala. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 42(2):180–185
Whipple KX (2001) fluvial landscape response time: How plausible is steady state denudation? Am J Sci 301:313–325
Yalcin G, Akyu rek Z (2004) Multiple Criteria Analysis for Flood Vulnerable Areas. 20th ISPRS Congress, Istanbul, Turkey, PP: 174–181.
Zavoianu I (1985) Morphometery of drainage basins: Developments in water science. Oxford, p: 237.
Funding
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Hadi Nayyeri: Supervision, Conceptualization, analyzing the results, writing-edition the paper, Shahla Kahrizi: the data collection, formal analysis, Hadi Sanikhani: Software, formal analysis, writing the original draft and writing-edition the paper.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
There are no conflicts of interest to declare.
Consent to participate
All the authors have consented to participate.
Consent for publication
All the authors have consented to participate.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Nayyeri, H., kahrizi, S. & Sanikhani, H. Analysis of the relationship between fractals and the dynamics governing watersheds, (case study Dinvar river basin in Kermanshah province, Iran). Environ Earth Sci 81, 515 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-022-10641-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-022-10641-0