THE STUDY OF THE DRAINAGE BASIN MORPHOMETRY OF PAPAGNI RIVER BASIN USING ASTER DEM

摘要

The present paper attempts to study the morphometric characteristics of Papagni River Basin, a tributary of Pennar River in south India using ASTER DEM. Morphometric analysis of a river basin provides a quantitative description of the drainage system, which is an important aspect of the characterization of basins. Morphometric analysis using GIS techniques coupled with remote sensing data is more suitable to analyze the drainage basin characteristics as it provides the real time and accurate information related to distinct geological formations, landforms and help to identify the drainage channels which are altered by natural forces or human induced activities. From the relief distribution of the basin it is inferred that major part of the basin has low relief and is in the old stage of geomorphic cycle. This is clearly indicated from the low values of dissection index as well as ruggedness index which are less than 0.15 for three fourth of the basin area. The sigmoid shaped hypsometric curve also indicates towards the old stage of the basin with majority of the sub-basins having integral value between 0.20 and 0.45. The linear and areal aspect of the basin reveals that the basin is normal, near-elongated and geologically less disturbed.