International Journal of Remote Sensing & Geoscience (IJRSG)

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CHARACTERISTICS OF DRAINAGE MORPHOLOGICAL

STUDIES USING GIS IN KOLLI HILLS, CENTRAL OF
TAMIL NADU, INDIA
Vinoth.M, Centre for Applied Geology, Gandhigram Rural Institute-Deemed University, Tamilnadu, India.
Suresh.M, Department of Civil Engineering, Jayalakshmi College of Engineering, Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu, India.
Gurugnanam.B, Centre for Applied Geology, Gandhigram Rural Institute-Deemed University, Tamilnadu, India.
Vingis4u@gmail.com

matric characteristics of the various watersheds have been

Abstract studied by many scientists using conventional (Horton,
1945; Smith, 1950; Strahler, 1957) and GIS methods (Krish-
GIS techniques have been adopted for the present inves- namurthy and Srinivas, 1995; Srivastava and Mitra, 1995;
tigation to identify the drainage morphological features and Agarwal, 1998; Biswas et al., 1999; Narendra and Nageswa-
analyzing their properties. The Kolli hills fall in Namakkal ra Rao, 2006). The quickly emerging spatial information
district, Tamil Nadu, India, have been taken up in the present technology (SIT) viz. GIS, and GPS has effective tools to
investigation. The drainage morphometric analysis of the overcome most of the problems of land and water resources
study area indicates that the micro-watersheds show dendrit- planning and management on the account of usage of con-
ic, sub-dendritic and radial drainage pattern. The parameters ventional methods of data process. An attempt is made here
worked out includes Drainage density, Drainage texture, to find out holistic stream properties from the measurements
Bifurcation ratio, Stream order, Stream length, Stream of various stream attributes and identifying zones for artifi-
length ratio, Stream frequency, Basin length, Form factor, cial recharge.
Elongation ratio and Circulatory ratio. The morphometric
analysis suggests that the comparison of all the fourteen mi- Study Area
cro-watershed shows that the morphometric parameters eva-
luated using GIS helped us to understand various terrain The proposed study is taken up in Kolli hills, the area
parameters such as nature of the bedrock, infiltration capaci- chosen for the present lies almost wholly in the Namakkal
ty and runoff, etc,. In the present scenario where water re- District of Tamil Nadu State (Fig.1), except a small pocket
sources are becoming scarce, this exercise of calculating the on the eastern part of the hills, which lies in Tiruchirappalli
various attributes of drainages plays a significant role in District. The study area is geographically situated between
locating sites for groundwater potential and artificial re- the north latitudes 11°11’ N to 11°30’N and east longitudes
charge structures. However, a comparison of the entire 14 78°16’E to 78°29’E covering an area of 485 km2. On the
watershed shows that the 2nd, 3rd and 7th micro watersheds northern side, it is bounded by Salem District and in the
have lowest drainage density, and hence are better suited for eastern and the south eastern sides it is bounded by Tituchi-
construction of recharge structures. rappalli District.
Key words: Morphometric analysis; Artificial recharge;
Micro-watershed; groundwater potential; Bedrock; Infiltra-
tion. Methodology
Introduction The base map was prepared using toposheet nos. 58I/7, 8
of 1:50,000 scale. In the present study base map showing
drainage details have been prepared from toposheets (SOI).
Drainage of the micro watershed is the study for the better The Kolli Hills was further subdivided into 14 micro water-
understanding of the morphological characteristics. The op- sheds, the drainage channels were classified into different
timal and sustainable development of the resource is prere- orders using Strahler’s 1964 classification. Other morpho-
quisite, so that, it is assessed rationally to avoid any future metric parameters such as basin area, basin perimeter, basin
problems regarding its qualitative and quantitative availabili- length and stream length were obtained which were further
ty. About 70% of population in India is dependent on agri- used to obtain the different ratios such as drainage density,
culture, directly or indirectly. India has diverse geographical Bifurcation Ratio, Stream length Ratio, Stream Frequency,
features and varied climates. It has 14 major basins through Form Factor, Elongation Ratio, Circulatory Ratio and Con-
which drain numerous rivers, while rivers in the southern stant of channel maintenance.
India are rain fed, with little perennial water. The morpho-

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butaries that flow nearly parallel to one another and all the
tributaries join the main channel at approximately the same
angle. Parallel drainage suggest that the area has a gentle,
uniform slopes and with less resistant bed rock. A radial
drainage pattern forms when water flows downward or out-
ward from a hill or dome. The radial drainage pattern of
channels produced can be linked to a wheel consisting of a
circular network of parallel channels flowing away from a
central high point (Jensen, 2006). The properties of the
stream networks are very important to study the landform
making process (Strahler and Strahler, 2002).

Fig.1. Study Area

Results and Discussion

Stream Order (Nu)

In the present study, the channel segment of the drainage

basin has been ranked according to Strahler’s stream order-
ing system. According to Strahler (1964), the smallest fin-
gertip tributaries are designated as order 1. Where two first Fig.2. Micro watershed boundary with drainage order
order channels join, a channel segment of order 2 is formed;
where two of order 2 join, a segment of order 3 is formed Table 1. Stream order and number of stream for the Kolli
and so forth. The trunk stream through which all discharge Hills
of water and sediment passes is therefore the stream segment
III Order

IV Order

of highest order. The study area is a 5th order drainage basin

II Order

V Order
I Order
Basin

Total

(Figure 2). The total number of 3130 streams were identified

of which 1765 are 1st order streams, 809 are 2nd order, 367
are 3rd order, 138 in 4th order and 51 in fifth order streams
(Table 1). Drainage patterns of stream network from the 1 80 38 4 - - 122
basin have been observed as mainly dendritic type which 2 20 1 - - - 21
indicates the homogeneity in texture and lack of structural 3 122 52 22 5 8 209
control. This pattern is characterized by a tree like or fern- 4 65 30 8 - - 103
like pattern with branches that intersect primarily at acute 5 102 53 10 12 - 177
angles. While in some parts of the basin represent sub- 6 144 55 46 18 - 263
dentritic and radial pattern types indicating that the topo- 7 144 52 46 10 - 252
graphical features are dipping, folded and highly jointed in 8 122 54 9 11 - 196
the hilly terrains. A parallel drainage pattern consists of tri-
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9 194 98 60 38 - 390 1988) and landscape evolution processes. Strahler (1964)

10 78 35 31 - - 144 noted that low drainage density is favored when basin relief
11 117 54 22 - - 193 is low and vice-versa. The drainage density varies from 1.25
12 192 99 62 25 - 378 to 3.50 for the various micro watersheds in the Kolli hills,
13 205 97 9 19 43 373 (Table 3). The drainage density for the entire study area is
14 180 91 38 - - 309 2.77. A low drainage density indicates permeable subsurface
strata and is a characteristic feature of coarse drainage which
generally shows values less than 5.0.
Stream Length (Lu)
Table-3. Area, Length, Drainage density, Bifurcation
Stream length is one of the most significant hydrological
Ratio of Kolli Hills and the Micro watershed
features of the hilly portion as it reveals surface runoff cha-

Length Ratio
Length (km)
Area (km2)

Bifurcation
(km/km2)
racteristics streams of relatively smaller lengths are characte-

Drainage
Density
Basin

Ratio
ristics of areas with larger slopes and finer textures. Longer
lengths of streams are generally indicative of flatter gra-
dients. Generally, the total length of stream segments is
maximum first order streams and decreases as the stream
1 19.75 55.55 3.37 2.81 5.80
order increases. The numbers of streams of various orders in
the hilly terrain are counted and their lengths from mouth to 30.6
2 5.58 6.97 1.25 20.00
drainage divide are measured with the help of ArcGIS ver- 8
sion 9.3.1 software. The length of the first order stream is 3 41.46 89.04 2.79 2.15 2.43
maximum in all the 14 micro watersheds (Table 2). 4 17.97 52.40 3.69 2.92 2.96
5 31.77 95.15 2.67 2.99 2.69
Table 2. Stream length (in kilometers) for the different
orders for Kolli Hills 6 41.70 109.19 2.54 2.62 2.12
I Or- II III IV V 7 43.55 107.85 3.70 2.48 2.83
Basin Total
der Order Order Order Order 8 39.59 110.62 2.85 2.79 3.03
1 37.13 14.91 3.51 - - 55.55 9 49.09 143.65 2.08 2.93 1.73
2 6.75 0.22 - - - 6.97 10 18.44 59.27 2.66 3.21 1.68
3 60.7 17.72 6.98 1.58 2.06 89.04 11 29.89 88.97 2.88 2.98 2.31
4 34.88 14.59 2.93 - - 52.40 12 51.27 142.22 2.25 2.77 2.01
5 63.1 21.95 6.11 3.99 - 95.15 13 47.79 160.51 3.57 3.36 3.45
6 72.42 20.6 11.24 4.93 - 109.19 14 43.39 151.87 2.58 3.50 2.19
7 72.83 19.51 13.26 2.25 - 107.85 To- 481.2 1373.2 68.3
38.76 55.23
8 77.44 22.68 5.94 4.56 - 110.62 tal 5 6 0
9 86.83 27.25 17.94 11.63 - 143.65
10 41.1 11.72 6.45 - - 59.27 Bifurcation Ratio (Rb)
11 63.95 15.72 9.3 - - 88.97
Bifurcation Ratio is defined as the ratio of the number of
12 89.77 28.68 14.98 8.79 - 142.22
streams of any given order to the number of streams in the
13 106.02 36.94 3.68 3.61 10.26 160.51 next lower order. The average of all these ratios gives the
14 102.65 33.1 16.12 - - 151.87 bifurcation ratio. The term was introduced by Horton in
1932. Bifurcation ratios characteristically range between 3
Drainage Density and 5 for watershed in which the geologic structures do not
distort the drainage pattern (Strahler, 1964). However, the
Drainage Density is defined as the total stream length in 2ed micro watershed shows an average bifurcation ratio of
a given basin to the total area of the basin, (Strahler. 1932, 20. This is mainly due to the fact that the basin area is very
1945). It is related to various features of landscape dissec- small and consists only of 1st and 2nd order streams and
tion such as valley density, (Montgomery and Dietrrich, there is a big difference in the frequencies between the suc-
1994; Tucker and Bras, 1998), channel head source area, cessive orders.
(Montgomery and Dietrich, 1989), climate and vegetation,
(Moglen et al. 1998), soil and rock properties, (Smith, 1958;
Kelson and Wells, 1989), relief (Montgomery and Dietrich,
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Stream Length Ratio

Table 5. Stream frequency, length, form factor, elonga-
The stream length ratio is the ratio between the lengths of tion ratio, circulatory ratio and Constant of channel
streams in a given order to the total length of streams in the Maintenance for the Kolli hills
next order. The stream length ratios for the Kolli hills (Table Con-
4) and other sub-basins very widely and are strongly depen- stant
dant on the topography and the slope. The stream length Cir-
Stre Elon of
ratio has an important relationship with the surface flow For cu-
am Lengt ga- chan-
discharge and the erosional stage of the basin. Ba- m lato-
Fre- h tion nel
sin Fac- ry
que (km) Ra- Main-
Table-4. Stream length ratio for the different order for tor Ra-
ncy tio ten-
Kolli Hills tio
ance
Basin 1/2 2/3 3/4 4/5 (C)
1 2.49 4.25 - - 1 6.18 11.48 1.72 1.10 1.88 1.72
2 30.68 - - - 2 3.76 7.32 0.76 0.49 1.31 0.76
3 3.43 2.54 4.42 0.77 3 5.04 11.85 3.50 2.23 3.71 3.50
4 2.39 4.98 - - 4 5.73 6.77 2.66 1.69 4.93 2.66
5 2.87 3.59 1.53 - 5 5.57 9.09 3.50 2.23 4.84 3.50
6 3.52 1.83 2.28 - 6 6.31 13.01 3.21 2.04 3.10 3.21
7 3.73 1.47 5.89 - 7 5.79 11.74 3.71 2.36 3.97 3.71
8 3.41 3.82 1.30 - 8 4.95 13.83 2.86 1.82 2.60 2.86
9 3.19 1.52 1.54 - 9 7.94 11.44 4.29 2.73 4.71 4.29
10 3.51 1.82 - - 10 7.81 6.26 2.95 1.88 5.92 2.95
11 4.07 1.69 - - 11 6.46 11.22 2.66 1.70 2.98 2.66
12 3.13 1.91 1.70 - 12 7.37 13.07 3.92 2.50 3.77 3.92
13 2.87 10.04 1.02 0.35 13 7.80 11.79 4.05 2.58 4.32 4.05
14 3.10 2.05 - - 14 7.12 13.98 3.10 1.98 2.79 3.10
Total 72.39 41.51 19.69 1.12 To- 87.8 152.8 42.9 27.3 50.8
42.90
tal 4 4 0 2 2
Stream Frequency (Fs)
Stream frequency or channel frequency is the total num- Elongation Ratio (Re)
ber of stream segments of all orders per unit area (Horton,
1932). The average stream frequency value of the study area
Schumm (1956) used an elongation ratio (Re) defined as
is 6.27 Km2 (Table 5). The value of stream frequency (Fs)
the ratio of diameter of a circle of the same area as the basin
for the basin exhibit positive correlation with the drainage
to the maximum basin length. It is a very significant index in
density value of the area indicating the increase in stream the analysis of watershed shape which helps to give an idea
population with respect to increase in drainage density. The about the hydrological character of a drainage basin. Values
stream frequency is dependant more or less on the rainfall
near to 1.0 are typical of regions of very low relief (Strahler,
and the temperature of the region.
1964). The value Re of the study area is 1.95 indicates that
the high relief of the terrain and elongated in shape.
Basin Length
According to Gregory and wailing (1973) basin length is Circularity Ratio (Rc)
the longest length of the basin from the head water to the
point of confluence. The total length of the Kolli hills is
152.84 km, (Table 5). The length of the other microwa- It is defined as the ratio of the study area to the area of
tershed has been given in Table 5. the circle having the same perimeter as the basin. This factor
is influenced more by the lithological characteristics of the
watershed rather than anything else. The low, medoum and
high values of the circulatory ratio are indications of the

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 International Journal of Remote Sensing & Geoscience (IJRSG)
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youth mature and old stages of the life cycle of the tributary Mexico, USA. Earth Surf. Processes Landforms, v.14,
basins. Kolli hills shows a circulatory ratio of 3.63 (Table 5), pp.671-690.
whereas 1st and 2ed micro watersheds was appears to be the [8] KRISHNAMURTHY, J., and SRINIVAS,G. (1995)
most mature micro watershed with a circulatory ratio of 1.31 “Role of geological and geo-morphological factors in
and this watersheds is in the youth stage of its development groundwater exploration: a study using IRS LISS da-
with a circulatory ratio of 1.88. This anomaly is mainly due ta”, Int. Jour. Remote Sensing, v.16, pp.2595-2618.
to the diversity of slope and relief present in the watershed. [9] MOGLEN, G.E., Eltahir, E.A. and BRas, R.L. (1998)
On the sensitivity of drainage density to climate
Conclusions change. Water Rsour. Res., v.34, pp.855-862.
[10] MONTGOMERY D.R. and DIETRICH, W.E. (1988)
The quantitative analysis of morphometric parameters is Where do channels begin? Nature, v.336, pp.232-234.
found to be of immense utility in kolli hills area are evalua- [11] MONTGOMERY, D.R. and Dietrich, W.E. (1989)
tion, watershed prioritization for soil and water conservation, Source areas, drainage density and channel initiation.
and natural resources management at micro level. The mor- Water Resour. Res., v.25, pp.1907-1918.
phometric analysis carried out in the Kolli hills area shows [12] NARENDRA, K., and NAGESWARA Rao, K.
that the micro watersheds are having high relief of the ter- (2006) “Morphometry of the Mehadrigedda wa-
rain and elongated in shape. Drainage network of the study tershed, Visakhapatnam district, Andhra Pradesh us-
area exhibits as mainly sub-dendritic and radial type which ing GIS and Resourcesat data”, Jour. Indian Soc. Re-
indicates the dipping and jointing of the topographical land mote Sensing, v.34, pp.101-110.
form. The morphometric parameters evaluated using GIS [13] SCHUMM, S.A. (1963) Sinuosity of alluvial rivers on
helped us to understand various terrain parameters such as the great plains. Geol. Soc. Amer. Bull. v.74,
nature of the bedrock, infiltration capacity, runoff, etc. pp.1089- 1100.
[14] SMITH K.G (1950) Standards for grading texture of
erosional topography. Amer. Jour. Sci., v.248,
Acknowledgments pp.655-668.
The author expresses a heartfelt thanks to the CSIR, Gov- [15] SMITH K.G. (1958) Erosional processes and landforms in
ernment of India for providing financial assistance to ex- Badlanda National Monument, South Dakota. Grol, Soc.
ecute this work. The author also expresses sincere thanks to Arner. Bull., v.69, pp.975-l008.
Geological survey of India. [16] SRIVASTAVA, V.K., and MITRA,D. (1995) “Study
of drainage pattern of Raniganj Coalfield (Burdwan
District) as observed on Landsat-TM/IRS LISS II im-
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Biographies
VINOTH. M received the M.Sc., Degree in Geoinformat-
ics from Annamalai University of Tamilnadu, in 2011 and
now he is doing Senior Research Fellow (SRF) in centre for
Applied Geology from Gandhigram Institute – Deemed Uni-
versity. Email: vingis4u@gmail.com

SURESH. M received the M.Sc., Degree in Applied Ge-

ology from Annamalai University in 2007, and P.hD. Degree
in Geology from the Annamalai University in 2010, respec-
tively. Currently, He is an Assistant Professor of Geology at
Department of Civil Engineering, Jayalakshmi College of
Engineering, Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu. His teaching and
research areas include Remote Sensing and GIS applications
in earth system studies. Email: watersuresh@gmail.com

GURUGNANAM.B received the M.Sc,. Degree in Ap-

plied Geology from Bharathidasan University of Tamilnadu,
in 1992, the M.Phil. Degree in Geology from the University
of Madras in 1993, and the Ph.D. Degree in Geology from
the Annamalai University in 2004, respectively. Currently,
He is an associate Professor of Geology at Gandhigram Ru-
ral Institute - Deemed University of Tamilnadu. His teaching
and research areas include remote sensing and GIS applica-
tions in earth system studies. He has authored a textbook: An
Introduction to GIS and Essentials of Hydrogeology, New
India publications, NewDelhi, 2008. Dr. Gurugnanam (Pro-
fessor Author) may be reached at gurugis4u@gmail.com

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