On the extraction of channel networks from digital elevation data

TLDR

Channel networks can be extracted from digital elevation data at arbitrary drainage densities, but for them to be useful they must be extracted at the correct length scale or drainage density. The study proposes a criterion to determine the appropriate drainage density for extracting networks from digital elevation data. The criterion involves extracting the highest‑resolution network that satisfies traditional scaling laws, and procedures implementing this criterion are presented and tested on 21 U.S. digital elevation datasets.

Abstract

Abstract Channel networks with artibtrary drainage density or resolution can be extracted from digital elevation data. However, for digital elevation data derived networks to be useful they have to be extracted at the correct length scale or drainage density. Here we suggest a criterion for determining the appropriate drainage density at which to extract networks from digital elevation data. The criterion is basically to extract the highest resolution (highest drainage density) network that satisfies scaling laws that have traditionally been found to hold for channel networks. Procedures that use this criterion are presented and tested on 21 digital elevation data sets well distributed throughout the U.S.