Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Bahram Saghafian ¹
• Bagher Ghermezcheshmeh ²
• Masoud Samiei ²
• Reza Asheghi ³

¹ Associate Professor, Soil Conservation and Watershed Management Research Institute, Iran

² MSc, Soil Conservation and Watershed Management Research Institute, Iran

³ Scientific Board, Department of Civil Engineering, Roud Hen Unit, Azad Islamic University, Iran

Abstract

Study of effective factors on sediment load of river basins has attracted more attention in watershed management. In spite of the short record length, sediment load measured in stations can be used in such studies. In this study, 20 sub-basins with measured sediment data was identified and some 48 physiographic, climatic, geologic, and vegetation index factors were extracted for the sub-basins using GIS. Surface curvature and satellite image-based vegetation indices were considered for the first time. Based on factor analysis, four factors namely total area, percent of convex area, percent area with northwest aspect and percent area with NDVI>0.4 were the main factors. Cluster analysis was applied to delineate homogeneous regions, which led to two regions. The results indicated that the factors mentioned above are the most influential factors on sediment load.

Keywords

• Discriminate
• Factor
• NDVI
• sediment load
• Surface curvature