Impact of flow routing on catchment area calculations, slope estimates, and numerical simulations of landscape development

Eitan Shelef, George E. Hilley

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

30 Scopus citations

Abstract

Flow routing across real or modeled topography determines the modeled discharge and wetness index and thus plays a central role in predicting surface lowering rate, runoff generation, likelihood of slope failure, and transition from hillslope to channel forming processes. In this contribution, we compare commonly used flow-routing rules as well as a new routing rule, to commonly used benchmarks. We also compare results for different routing rules using Airborne Laser Swath Mapping (ALSM) topography to explore the impact of different flow-routing schemes on inferring the generation of saturation overland flow and the transition between hillslope to channel forming processes, as well as on location of saturation overland flow. Finally, we examined the impact of flow-routing and slope-calculation rules on modeled topography produced by Geomorphic Transport Law (GTL)-based simulations. We found that different rules produce substantive differences in the structure of the modeled topography and flow patterns over ALSM data. Our results highlight the impact of flow-routing and slope-calculation rules on modeled topography, as well as on calculated geomorphic metrics across real landscapes. As such, studies that use a variety of routing rules to analyze and simulate topography are necessary to determine those aspects that most strongly depend on a chosen routing rule. Key Points Routing rules impact geomorphic process transitions over high resolution DEMs The effect of routing rules on simulated topography is statistically significant New flow routing rule that honors two-dimensional plan-view flow geometry

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2105-2123
Number of pages19
JournalJournal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface
Volume118
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • benchmark
  • flow routing
  • modeled landscape
  • overland flow
  • process-transition
  • topographic metrics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Earth-Surface Processes
  • Geophysics

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