Extraction Drainage Network for Lesser Zab River Basin from DEM using Model Builder in GIS

Abstract

ArcHydro is a model developed for building hydrologic information systems to synthesize geospatial and temporal water resources data that support hydrologic modeling and analysis. Raster-based digital elevation models (DEMs) play an important role in distributed hydrologic modeling supported by geographic information systems (GIS). Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data have been used to derive hydrological features, which serve as inputs to various models. Currently, elevation data are available from several major sources and at different spatial resolutions. Detailed delineation of drainage networks is the first step for many natural resource management studies. Compared with interpretation from aerial photographs or topographic maps, automation of drainage network extraction from DEMs is an efficient way and has received considerable attention. This study aims to extract drainage networks from Digital Elevation Model (DEM) for Lesser Zab River Basin. Composition parameters of the drainage network including the numbers of streams and the stream lengths are derived from the DEM beside the delineation of catchment areas in the basin. The results from this application can be used to create input files for many hydrologic models.