Calculating terrain indices along streams - a new method for separating stream sides

• There is increasing interest in assessing riparian zones and their hydrological and biogeochemical buffering capacity with indices derived from hydrologic landscape analysis of digital elevation data. Upslope contributing area is a common surrogate for lateral water flows and can be used to assess the variability of local water inflows to riparian zones and streams. However, current GIS algorithms do not provide a method for easily separating riparian zone and adjacent upland lateral contributions on each side of the stream. Here we propose a new algorithm to compute side-separated contributions along stream networks. We describe the new algorithm and illustrate the importance of distinguishing between lateral inflows on each side of streams with hillslope – riparian zone – stream hydrologic connectivity results from high frequency water table data collected in the 22km 2  Tenderfoot Creek catchment, Montana.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Oceanografi, hydrologi och vattenresurser (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Oceanography, Hydrology and Water Resources (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

riparian

hillslope

topography

stream network

terrain analysis

GIS

Hydrology

Hydrologi

Physical Geography

naturgeografi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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