Performance evaluation of flow routing algorithms in different topographic characteristics

摘要

It is a complicated process to estimate the direction of water flow above the Earth's surface. Several algorithms exist to calculate the flow direction, which may yield different results for a particular place with specific topographic characteristics. The complicacy lies in the choice of algorithm to get more accurate results. The selection of algorithms should be made considering their suitability in different topographic situations. In this research, eight existing commonly used algorithms have been used to extract the streamlines of a study area with a distinct topographic condition. This study tends to analyse and compare the resulted streamlines from these algorithms with a reference streamline. Evaluation has been done based on variation in stream orders, variation in contributing cells and spatial changes. Spatial differences have also been measured considering three topographic characteristics: elevation, slope, and roughness of study areas. Lastly, this study attempts to suggest the usability of these algorithms in different terrain characteristics.