The Pfafstetter Coding System in Hydrological modeling

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The Pfafstetter Coding System in Hydrological
modeling

• TANG, Qiuhong

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Outline

• Introduction and concept
• Methodology
• Application

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Introduction and concept

• The river basin has seen as a fundamental
  landscape unit for water resources assessment and
  management.
• A natural system for delineation and codification
  of basins is presented.
• The system is based on topographic control and
  the topology of the river network. The DEM
  (digital elevation model) maps and GIS technique
  are used to reach the target automatically.

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Our target

• DEM -gt River basins (with relationships)

DEM
River basins
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Methodology (1)

• From the watershed outlet, trace upstream along
  the main stem of the river, and get the
  tributaries.
• Identify the 4 greatest tributaries.

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Methodology (2)

• Inter-basins are the watersheds that contribute
  flow to the main stem.

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Methodology (3)

• The assigned codes are then appended on to the
  end of the Pfafstetter code of the next lowest
  level.

Sub-basin Id2
Inter-basin Id1
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Methodology (4)

• Watershed relationships
• If we have the Pfafstetter code of the river
  basin, we can determine the downstream or
  upstream watershed easily.

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Application

• Hydro1k data (the Yellow River Basin)

Dem (1k)
Code (level 1)
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Application

• Level 2 and 3

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Application

• The methodology is not limited in one river
  basin. It can also be used in continental scale.

http//edcdaac.usgs.gov/gtopo30/hydro/nasub_img.as
p
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Further study

• Use DEM data, we can generate the river basins
  and describe the relationship between them.
• We can generate the TRIP automatically and
  easily. Now, global 3 arc second (90 meter) DEM
  data are available.
• The coding system will be used in runoff
  accumulation processes in my research.

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Thank you for your attention.