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Measurement and analysis of depression storage on a hillslope
Author(s) -
Sneddon J.,
Chapman T. G.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
hydrological processes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.222
H-Index - 161
eISSN - 1099-1085
pISSN - 0885-6087
DOI - 10.1002/hyp.3360030102
Subject(s) - depression (economics) , sampling (signal processing) , hydrology (agriculture) , soil science , photogrammetry , environmental science , geology , statistics , surface (topology) , mathematics , remote sensing , computer science , geotechnical engineering , geometry , economics , macroeconomics , filter (signal processing) , computer vision
A precise photogrammetric technique was used to determine the microtopography of seven 2.6 m × 1.2 m experimental units located on a hillslope. Surface elevations were determined with an accuracy of better than 1 mm, from which contours at 2mm intervals were interpolated. These contour plots were then manually interpreted to define depressions and associated storage volumes. Analysis of the results highlighted the complex variability of depression storage over the hillslope, for example there being little relation between depression storage volumes and unit slope. This study also highlights the sampling problem for the measurement of depression storage on natural surfaces, which appears not to have been formally recognized previously, and also emphasizes the practical difficulty of achieving depression storage estimates with coefficients of variation less than ten per cent to 50 per cent, much of this variability being due to problems of interpretation rather than measurement of the surface.