摘要：The use of the drainage morphometric characteristics for the investigations relating to hydrology has beenamply discussed in various studies. The realization of its importance has made the analysis of drainagemorphometric characteristics studies related to hydrological studies. The morphometric analysis of ChittarRiver Basin (CRB), a fifth order sub basin of Vamanapuram River on the south west coast, has been studiedusing Arc Info GIS software. The drainage patterns of the basin are delineated using IRS IC LISS III dataand SOI toposheets on 1:25,000 scale as reference. The drainage pattern of the study area is dendritic withstream orders ranging from I to V. The different drainage parameters studied include drainage pattern,stream order, stream number, stream length ratio, relief ratio, bifurcation ratio, constant of channelmaintenance, frequency of source head, frequency of confluence points, slope and DEM. The drainagedensity of the Chittar basin varies from 1 km/km 2 to > 4 km/km 2 . Stream length ratios for different streamorders vary between 0.30 and 0.64, which are low to moderate and suggest the moderately resistant hardrock terrain. The bifurcation ratio of streams of different order of the basin varies from 3.21 to 5.00. Theaverage bifurcation ratio for the Chittar basin is 3.94, which is near to 4, suggesting some structural controlover the development of drainage basin. The relative relief of the basin varies from place to place and mostof the basin comes under the category of 30-60 m. At some places relative relief is very high and it suggestsrugged topography. It is concluded that Remote Sensing and GIS have been proved to be efficient tools indrainage delineation and updation.
