Geomorphometric Assessment of the Terrain Characteristics of Al-Sharhani Drainage Basin, Eastern of Misan Governorate, Iraq

Abstract

In this paper, the terrain characteristics of Al-Sharhani drainage basin and its secondary basins were studied, which is located in the eastern parts of Misan Governorate in southern Iraq, within the eastern Tigris region. The study was conducted using 5 geomorphometric parameters listed in Table 1. with the use of the SRTM (Digital Elevation Model - DEM) and Landsat ETM+7 satellite image with a resolution of 30 m for the American satellite, as well as 1/50000 1/100000 topographic maps, and 1/250000 geological maps, the Spatial databases were created, using a GIS environment. The results showed that there is a direct influence of natural factors (surface, climate and geological structure) in the formation of the basin's topography features. The results also indicated that the relief ratio was 9.849 m/km, which is a low value that reflects the characteristics of the plateau in the region, and the relative relief value was 3.345 m/km, and the relationship was negative between the drainage basin area and the relative relief values. As well as the hypsometric integration value, which is 0.681 km2 /m, which is a low value because the basin is at the beginning of the geomorphological development stage, the ruggedness number was 0.415 which is a low value due to the low density of the discharge, while the texture ratio was 7.149 streams/km, this value indicates that the basin has a medium texture.