Drainage Network Simulation
Case Study: Wadi Dhara
Abdullah S. Al-Wagdani
&
Samaeer M. Bamufleh
Department of Hydrology, Faculty of Meteorology, KAAU,
P.O. Box 80208, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
ABSTRACT:
Digital elevation model was created for Wadi Dhara which is an upstream
mountainous catchment of Aleeth basin. The study region is located in
southwestern part of Saudi Arabia. The GIS software Idrisi was utilized to
create the DEM of the region through digitizing topographic maps of the region
and interpolating the elevation over the surface. The Watershed Management
System software was then used to automatically extracting the boundary and
the channel network of wadi Dhara watershed that is located in the studied
region from the created DEM. Both boundary and channel network of the wadi
were extracted manually from topographic maps of the region. The
automatically and manually extracted boundary and network were compared.
The results of the two techniques were found very similar in terms of area and
shape of the channels. The automatic procedure was recommended since it is
faster, has less error due to human mistakes and cost less whenever the digital
map of the studied region is available.