EVALUATION OF CATROSAT 1PAN STEREO AND RESOURCESAT LISS 4 MSS MERGED DATA FOR MORPHOMETRIC ANALYSIS, DELINEATION OF DRAINAGE BASINS AND CODIFICATION IN TAMIL NADU, INDIA AND AUSTRALIA
Authors: Mohamed G. S. , Srinivasan S. , Pandian R. , Gummidipoondi R. J. , Venkatchalam R. V. , Swaminathan .S S. 
Published: August 2012

Abstract. The Topographic maps and Aerial Photographs are used for morphometric analysis of drainage basins and mapping contours with drainage. The stereo pairs of 2.5 m resolution Cartosat 1, Indian satellite 2 and merged data with 5.5 m resolution P6 Resourcesat 1 LISS 4 Indian satellite of 2001 is used to map, rills, gullies, and streams of first order to evaluate part of drainage basin of Cooum and Poondi Reservoir in Thiruvallur taluk of Tamil Nadu state. The Geo Eye latest 2011data is also used with Catrosat 1Stereo data to study present morphology of tiny micro watersheds to study the use of High resolution data for delineation and codification of watersheds. This study area is in an inter fluvial drainage basin of Cooum and Kusasthalai rivers. Kusasthalai river drains in Poondi reservoir which is about 50 km from Chennai. The excess water from Kosasthalai is also diverted through Kesawaram weir to Cooum river which passes through Thiruvallur and Chennai city before it's confluence with Bay of Benegal in the east. As Cooum basin is at higher elevation, water for irrigation is again diverted through chain of tanks to Kusasthalai river basin to drain in Poondi reservoir. Delineation of water sheds in this fluvial basin is difficult by manual survey as man made irrigation channels, natural drainage streams etc., have to be clearly identified. The streams of various orders are identified based on Strahler stream order hierarchy of tributaries, slops and contours using large scale satellite data. The micro water sheds are delinated identifying the ridges from Catrosat data for this interfluves basin which has mild slop. To illustrate this research, parts of two micro watersheds which were delineated using 1:50000 data for Tamil Nadu watershed Atlas up to 7th order streams are taken up for a detailed study using high resolution data. 19 Micro watersheds with streams up to 10th order are mapped. The capability of high resolution satellite data for digital as well as visual interpretation in conjunction with village cadastral maps has been studied. This research will be useful to consider creation of digital micro watershed atlas for management and protecting area affected by floods as well as for water and land resource management of the River basins in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria states of Australia. The research explains the need of using stream orders, delineation and codification micro watersheds based the principles of Dr.A.N.Khosla. This methodology was used in creation of web site of Districts soil water sheds atlas of Tamil Nadu state. With this principal of codification and delineation of watersheds based on stream order using stereo data of Cartosat 1 PAN 2.5 m data merged with Resourcesat LISS 4 data of 5.5m resolution and updating latest changes as on 2011 with non stereo Geo eye data of 0.5m resolution it is possible to create Australian micro water sheds GIS with deatils of streams with various stream orders, drainage pattern, slope, micro water sheds boundary in 1:5000 scale to manage the flood prone drainage basin in Australia. The High resolution data of satellites data apart from creation Micro watersheds GIS can be used for creation of Urban and Argicultural land parcel owenership details in Micro watershed GIS.