By Suhaib Ul Sabah, Department of Geography, University of Jammu.

1. MORPHOMETRIC ANALYSIS
A CASE STUDY OF RIVER RAVI AND ITS TRIBUTARIES
A PROJECT REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE
UNIVERSITY OFJAMMU
In partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of “MASTER OFGEOGRAPHY”
SUPERVISOR : DR INDERJEET SINGH,ASSISSTANT PROFESSOR (DEPT OF GEOGRAPHY)
SUBMITTED BY : SHIVALI (001-GEO-19) , SUHAIB(002-GEO-19) , ANSHU (003-GEO-19) ,
KARANDEEP(004-GEO-19) , SABA (33-GEO-19) , VISHAL(34-GEO-19)

2. CHAPTER 1 :
S NO. CONTENTS
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Need and Significance of the study
1.3 Statement of the problem
1.4 Study area
1.5 Review of literature
1.6 Inferences
1.7 Objective
1.8 Research questions
1.9 Database
1.10 Methodology
1.11 References

3. CHAPTER 1:
1.1 INTRODUCTION
DEFINITION OF MORPHOMETRY AND MORPHOMETRIC ANALYSIS :
 “Morphometry means measurement of the shape or geometry of any natural form”. (Strahler,1967).
 Morphometric analysis refers to the quantitative evaluation of form characteristics of the earth surface and any
landform unit.
3 IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF DOING THE MORPHOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF THE BASIN ARE :
1) Linear aspect : One dimension
2) Areal aspect : Two dimension
3) Relief aspect : Three dimension
Contd.

4. 1) Linear aspects : It gives information about one dimensional parameters like stream order,
stream number, bifurcation ratio.
 StreamOrder:-The stream order is a positive whole number to indicate the level of branching
in a river system.
 StreamNumber:-Thecountofstreamchannelingivenorderistermedasstream number.
 BifurcationRatio:According to Schumm (1956), bifurcation ratio is the ratio of number of
stream segment of given order to the number of segments.

5. 2) Areal aspects : They are two dimensional properties of a basin like stream frequency,
drainage density.
 DrainageDensity:-Drainagedensityisthecomputationofthetotalstreamlength in a given
basin area to the total area of the basin.
 StreamFrequency:-Stream frequency issum of allstream segmentofallorders per unit
area (Horton, 1932).

6. 3) Relief aspects : It mainly include the analysis of features like basin relief, relief ratio, slope.
 Basin relief :- It is the elevation difference of the highest and lowest point of the valley floor.
 Relief ratio :-It is the ratio of basin relief to basin length.
 Slope :-It is defined as the ratio between the vertical rise and the equivalent horizontal
distance on the surface of the earth.

7. 1.2 NEED AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY :
 Morphometric analysis helps in understanding the geology, structure, geomorphology
and drainage pattern of an area.
 Such an analysis helps in making inferences about particular characteristics of area like
tectonic activity, rate and intensity of weathering and erosion, deforestation, rock type,
soil nature and its properties etc. which further helps in addressing variety of present day
problems of erosion, landslides, watershed degradation, etc.

8. 1.3 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM :
 Morphometric analysis refers to the quantitative evaluation of form, characteristics of the earth
surface and any land form unit.
 It is the quantitative study of the various componentssuchasstream segments,basin length,basin
parameters, basin area, altitude, volume,slope,profileofthelandwhichindicatesthenatureof
development ofthebasin.Itrequiresmeasurementoflinearfeatures, gradientofchannelnetwork
andcontributingground.slopesofthedrainagebasin.
 Morphometric analysis helps us in studying the parameters like stream density, stream
frequency, longitudinal profile to plan remedial measures for erosion and other related problems.

9. 1.4 GEOGRAPHICAL PERSONALITY OF THE STUDY AREA :

10.  Kathua is one of the prominent district of Jammu province and is often referred as the
“Gateway of J&K”. It lies at the southern most end of the State and is located between
34º16’00” to 32º55’00” North Latitude and between 75º 06’ to 75º 54’ East Longitude
 Bounded by Gurdaspur district of Punjab in the South-East, Chamba district of Himachal
Pradesh in North-East, District Doda and Udhampur in North and North- West, Jammu in
the West and in South-West by international border with Pakistan (Plate I).
 Total geographical area 2,651 sq km, comprising of 575 villages (556 in-habited villages and
19 Un-inhabited villages).
 Administratively, the district is divided into 4 tehsils (kathua, Hiranagar, Basohli and
Billawar) and 8 Developmental blocks (Kathua, Billawar, Lohimalhar, Basohli, Bani, Barnoti,
Hiranagar and Duggan).

11.  District is occupied by high mountain ranges having elevation between 500 m to 3000 m in
the northern and north eastern part and with gentle terrain called as outer plains in the
southern and south western part. Slope is towards south.
 District is drained by perennial river Ravi that is sub-basin to Indus river along with its
tributaries viz Ujh, Tarnah and Bein. Numerous khads are also present.
 Due to altitudinal variations among the tehsils, district experiences wide range of climate
from sub-tropical in plain tehsils to temperate and even alpine in hilly tehsils.
 Rainfall is 1360 mm and upper reaches experiences snowfall.
 District has agriculture and horticulture as economic activities.
 Small to medium scale industries (handloom, handicraft and power) are present . Tourism
activities is another source of livelihood.

12. 1.5 REVIEW OF LITERATURE:
 Mustafa et.al(2014) have studied Galagou valley`s drainage basin descending from
the Ethiopian west mountains. He observed that the drainage basin is of 5th order
with a dendritic pattern and a coarse drainage texture.
 Altaf, Meraj and Ramshoo (2013) conducted morphometric analysis of Liddar river,
Northwest Greater Himalayan Mountain Range, Kashmir. The outcome revealed
that the entire study area has uniform lithology. The area is more prone to
weathering due to very-coarse to coarse drainage texture.

13. 1.6 INFERENCES :
 Morphometric analysis is important to study the earth`s surface and gives us details
about relief dimensions of basin and development of various landforms.
 It is almost impossible to quantify the information pertaining to river basin without
morphometric analysis, which furthers provides us knowledge about the origin and
development of various landforms.

14. 1.7 OBJECTIVES:
 The main objective is to study the morphometry of area ,its associated features.
 To know the influence of morphometry of the area on the physical and human
landscape.

15. 1.8) RESEARCH QUESTIONS :
 What are the different morphometric characteristics of the drainage in the study
area?
 What are the factors affecting the morphometry of the drainage area?
 How various morphometric characteristics are influencing the physical and human
landscape?

16. 1.9) DATABASE :
Data are numerical statement of aggregate. It is set of values of qualitative or quantitative variable.
Generally, data are of two types on basis of sources:
 Primary data : These are those which are collected first time and all thus originally in
characteristics. The source for collection of such data is known as Primary source.
 Secondary data : The secondary data is collected by some other agency and are available in
publications such as reports, books, census, journals etc.

17. 1.10) METHODOLOGY :
 Methodologyismethodandtechniquesusedinfulfillingtheobjective.
 Statisticalanalysisofdatahasprovidedusempiricalevidencesforour study. Beloware certain
statistical toolswhichwill be implementedtosupport our study of morphometry ofbasin.
contd..

18. (A) Linear aspects :
PARAMETER FORMULA
Stream frequency (Fs) Fs=∑Nu/A
Drainage density (Dd) Dd=Lu/A
 (B) AREAL ASPECTS :
PARAMETER FORMULA
Stream order (u) a positive whole number to indicate the level of branching in a river
system.
Stream length (lu) Dimensional property revealing size of components of drainage network
Bifurcation ratio (Rb) Rb=Nu/(Nu+1) , where Nu is no. of streams of particular order

19. S NO. CONTENTS
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 DRAINAGE PATTERN
2.3 BIFURCATION RATIO
2.4 DRAINAGE DENSITY
2.5 STREAM FREQUENCY
CHAPTER 2
MORPHOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF DRAINAGE BASIN

20. 2.1) INTRODUCTION :
 Morphometric analysis plays an important role in comprehension of the geo-
hydrological nature of drainage basin.
 It expresses the prevailing climate, geological setting, geomorphology and structural
antecedents of the catchment area.
 It demonstrates the dynamic equilibrium that has been achieved due to interaction
between matter and energy.
contd..

21. 2.2) DRAINAGE PATTERN :
 Meansspatialarrangementandformofdrainagesysteminterms of
geometricalshapesintheareasofdifferentrocktypes,geological
structure, climatic conditions and denudational history.
 Pinnate drainagepattern in the north eastern part of the study
area representing the regions of Bani, Basohli, Billawar, etc. as the
tributaries join the longitudinal master consequent stream more
or less at acute angle.
 Also the drainage pattern is found to be of dendritic nature in the
south western part of study area .This excess bifurcation is
mainly due to the decrease in the gradient .

22. 2.3) BIFURCATION RATIO :
 The bifurcation ratio is the ratioof numberof streamsegmentsof
givenordertothe numberofsegmentsofnexthigherorders.
TABLE : Bifurcation ratio of drainage basin
Stream Order
(µ)
Number of
streams (Nµ)
Length of
streams(km)
Bifurcation
Ratio
(Rb=Nµ/Nµ+1
)
1 255 668 2.07
2 123 347 2.12
3 58 155 2.23
4 26 76 -
TOTAL 462 1247 MEAN =2.14

23.  Mean bifurcation ratio=2.14
 Mean Bifurcation ratio of the drainage basin is 2.14 which suggests that the river flows
through flat rolling plains and over small mountainous area and the geology is reasonable
homogeneous and there is no structural disturbance. Since this value lies in the average value
of bifurcation ratio ,I e. (2 – 4) whichshows that the area is notmore prone toflood.
 With respect to the study area, the bifurcation ratio of stream order 1st is 2.07 and while
coming down to the 2nd stream order the bifurcation increases to 2.12 which shows that the
area which comes under the stream order 2nd are more likely to develop flood like situations
thanthefirststreamorder.
 The bifurcation ratio of 3rd stream order is 2.23 which shows that the area comes under this
streamorderare morepronetofloodthan alltheotherstreams.

24. 2.4) DRAINAGE DENSITY :
 Drainage density is defined as the ratio of total length of all the streams segments in a given
drainagebasintothetotalareaof that basinand thus it can be derived as:
Dd = LK/AK
= Total length of all streams / Total area of basin
= 1247 / 2651
= 0.47 km-1
where, LK is the total length of all stream segments of a basin and AK is the total
area of basin.
 The above calculated Drainage Density value corresponds to low density of
streaminthe studyregion.

25.  The given map shows the stream density distribution with different
areas of the Kathua .
 lowest class resembles the area having density of less than 66.9 km-1.
which shows that the area is characterized by poor watershed and is
less prone to flood like situations.
 Similarly, the highest class resembling the area having density of more
than 135 km-1 is characterized by high watershed and is more prone to
flood like conditions.
 In the study area,due to dry conditions in the NE region directly leads to
low value of drainage density in the higher areas as compared to low
altitudeareaswhichhavehighdrainagedensity.
 Thestudyareaasawholeportraysalowtomediumdrainagedensity.

26. 2.5) STREAM FREQUENCY :
 Streamfrequencyordrainagefrequencyisthemeasureofnumberofstreamsperunit area
and thus it can be derived as :
Stream Frequency = Total number of streams / Total area of basin
= 462/2651
= 0.17km-2
 It mainly depends on the lithology of the basin and reflects the textureofthedrainage
network.
contd..

27.  Frequency >0.2 in
some areas . Because
of low permeability
and moderate slope.
 Frequency 0.03-0.2
spread across entire
area.
 Areas with frequency
<0.03 are also widely
spread. Signifies high
soil permeability in
such areas.

28. 2.6) CONCLUSION :
 It can be thus concluded that the morphometric analysis of river basin is an important
aspect of study of earth’s surface and gives us knowledge of the linear, areal and relief
aspectsofthe fluviallyoriginateddrainagebasin.
 The lithology and geological structures govern the stream courses which further control the
processesofweatheringanderosion and plan about their remedial measures.
 The analysis of various morphometric parameter helps us understanding the human
landscape and physical landscape.