Morphometry using remote sensing and GIS techniques in the sub-basins of Kagna river basin, Gulburga district, Karnataka, India

The study area is a part of Kagna river basin in the Gulburga district of Karnataka, India. It covers an area of 1320 km2 and it has been subdivided into 4 sub-basins namely Wadi, Chitapur, Sedam and Kurkunta, which range in area from 184 to 537 km2. The drainage pattern of these sub-basins are delineated using Geo-coded FCC bands 2,3,4 of IRS 1C and 1D(LISS III+PAN merged) on 1:50,000 scale and Survey of India toposheets as reference. The morphometric parameters are computed using ArcInfo and ArcView GIS softwares. The drainage pattern of the study area is dendritic to sub-dendritic with stream orders ranging from IV to VII orders. Drainage density ranges from 1.40 to 1.86 km/km2 suggesting coarse to moderate drainage texture. The change in values of stream length ratio indicate their late youth stage of geomorphic development. The values of bifurcation ratio ranging from 2.00 to 4.71 indicate that all the sub-basins fall under normal basin category. The values of form factor and circulatory ratio, suggest that the Kurkunta sub-basin is elongated and the remaining sub-basins are more or less circular in shape. Elongation ratio indicates that the Wadi sub-basin is a region of very low relief whereas the other sub-basins are associated with moderate to high relief and steep ground slopes. It is concluded that remote sensing and GIS have been proved to be efficient tools in drainage delineation and updation. In the present study these updated drainages have been used for the morphometric analysis. © 2008 Indian Society of Remote Sensing.