Tectonic control over drainage basin of South Andaman Island: study toward hydro-morphometric analysis

Abstract

Scientists and researchers in ancient and modern times have profoundly applied morphometric analysis to evaluate quantitative description of landforms or drainage basins and large regions.The objective of this study is to enlighten certain features like tectonic control over drainage basin, the hydro-geomorphic characteristics of the drainage system and the geomorphic maturity of terrain of South Andaman Island. After extensive studies, drainage system in this particular island is broadly classified into five major drainage patterns (dendritic, trellis, parallel, radial and centripetal). An attempt has been made here to investigate the in-depth morphometric characteristics of dendritic pattern of a fourth-order watershed. In earlier attempts, researchers have used morphometric analysis to calculate stream ordering, stream length, length ratio and bifurcation ratio as part of linear aspects and drainage density, stream frequency, form factor, circulatory ratio, elongated ratio as part of areal aspects. The present case study has been carried out in remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS) environment. Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission data has been used to prepare the digital elevation model and GIS to evaluate all linear, areal and relief aspects of this small drainage basin in South Andaman Island which was never unearthed till date.