Longitudinal profiling and elevation-relief analysis of the Indus

The Indus basin—one of the largest fluvial-controlled landscapes of the world, provides a major agro-economic resource base while showcasing unique morphometry along its course. However, despite its large socio-economic relevance in South Asia, a distinct account of morphometric variations down its...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inArabian journal of geosciences Vol. 11; no. 13; pp. 1 - 18
Main Authors Prerna, R., Pandey, Dhananjai K., Mahender, Kotha
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.07.2018
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Digital Elevation Models
Dynamics
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth science
Earth Sciences
Elevation
Geostatistics
Hydrologic models
Hydrology
Landscape
Morphometry
Original Paper
Parameters
River basins
Rivers
Stability
Elevation-relief ratio
Morphometry
Indus
Longitudinal-profile
Basin
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Summary:The Indus basin—one of the largest fluvial-controlled landscapes of the world, provides a major agro-economic resource base while showcasing unique morphometry along its course. However, despite its large socio-economic relevance in South Asia, a distinct account of morphometric variations down its course still remains elusive. Here, for the first time a quantitative demarcation of the Indus basin into—upper, middle, and lower basin is proposed based on analyses of critical morphometric parameters (viz. gradient/river length ratio, elevation-relief ratio, channel width, sinuosity, and slope). Geostatistical and hydrological operations performed on digital elevation models, suggest that the highest and lowest relief sectors are tectonically more stable than the middle relief sector, inferred from a convex hypsometric curve. Elevation-relief ratio for the basin indicates tectonic stability with ~ 31% of remnant rock still in place. Cross-sectional transects also demonstrate anomalous patterns that deviate from predictive characteristics of youthful, mature, and senile stages of river development. All parameters are spatially coalesced to provide a first-ever holistic morphometric account of the Indus basin while describing fine-scale planform variations of the spectacular dynamics of this enormous river basin.
ISSN:1866-7511
1866-7538
DOI:10.1007/s12517-018-3657-5