Research on the quantitative relationship between topographic features and river network structures

ABSTRACTABSTRACTHydrologists pursue the long-term goals of studying the relationship between hydrological processes and geomorphological processes, establishing quantitative relationships between these processes and finding ways to directly derive hydrological processes from topographic parameters to reduce the dependence on hydrological data. In this study, the river network of the Haihe River Basin was extracted based on DEM, and 18 representative small basins were selected as samples. Four river network parameters (the river network density, average branch ratio, average length ratio and fractal dimension) and four topographic parameters (the slope, topographic relief, surface roughness and roundness rate) were calculated for 18 small basins. The river network features and topographic features of the basin were analysed. Correlation analysis, one-dimensional linear regression, partial correlation analysis and multiple linear regression (stepwise regression) methods were used to analyse the quantitative relationship between topographic parameters and river network parameters. The analysis results were tested by a significance test, the final goodness of fit of the regression model was good, and the results were reliable. The correlations are spatially heterogeneous and may show variable results in different regions. This study guides river network planning and management, and managers should pay attention to the correlation between river networks and topography in the long term.KEYWORDS: Haihe River Basinriver network parameterstopographic parametersquantitative relationshipregression model AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to acknowledge the financial support for this work provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 52179020).Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Authors’ contributionsAll the authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analyses were performed by Fawen Li, He Wang and Huifeng Liu. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Fawen Li, and all the authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.Availability of data and materialThe datasets used or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.Additional informationFundingThe work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [52179020]