Delineation of watershed in a mountainous area using different digital elevation models

Abstract

The precise delineation of watersheds is essential to studies related to environmental and hydrologic modeling. Such delineation is performed automatically in GIS softwares using algorithms that identify the watershed from grid representation of the terrain, the digital elevation model (DEM). This study evaluated the automatic delineation of a watershed located in the southern mountainous region of Espirito Santo (Brazil) using six different DEMs. Three MDEs were obtained by radar images (SRTM) and its refinements. Other three MDEs were obtained by process spatial interpolation of topographic data using different interpolators. It was found that the MDE obtained by the interpolation of topographic data using Top To Raster interpolator, (taking mapped hydrography as support) promoted the best representation of the watershed topography for the purpose of its delimitation.