Delineation of the Matança River Basin by the TauDEM automatic demarcation tool

Abstract

The automatic delimitation of watersheds stands out as essential for the planning and management of water resources, and the delineation and layout of the hydrographic network influences conjunctures in this process. The use of natural resources such as water due to their use in agriculture, industry and urban supply was part of the growing scientific advance regarding the evolution in the scenario of cartographic representation currently dominated by digital cartography. In order to provide a data structure for further hydrological studies by morphometry, it is permissible to establish parameters that indicate the behavior of the river basin, such as flood potential. Therefore, this study had the objective to define the Hydrographic River Basin the Killing making use of TauDEM extension (Terrain Analysis Using Digital Elevation Models), appliance exclusive to hydrological analysis with membership of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), which can be obtained from remote sensing products absorbed in a variety of free or commercial software such as ArcGIS and QGIS. Given the results obtained it can be attributed that the TauDEM tool is very efficient for automatic delimitation of river basins, mainly reducing the time spent in the process, giving incentives for the diagnosis and planning of watersheds. It is concluded in this study that the Matança River Basin has a flat and gently undulated relief, not susceptible to flooding.