The contribution of the digital elevation models and geographic information systems in a watershed hydrologic research

Abstract

The hydrological and physical characteristic description of a watershed constitutes an essential task for hydrologic research. Usually, this one requires a hydrologic model of which the running needs a great number of data and information. The main purpose of this study was to use Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data, free of charge, for hydrologic studies in Algeria. This work will also be a good assessment test of hydrologic geospatial tools HEC-GeoHMS integrated in the ESRI ArcView 3.2 GIS. It is to define the watershed of Macta and its sub-basins and to extract the hydrographical network and also other topographic and hydrologic parameters from the SRTM data. The data bank with the obtained results and the schematisation of the studied watershed (Macta watershed is in the western of Algeria) will be used as a foundation of a hydrologic model. © The Author(s) 2010.