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Arid Land Geography ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (8): 1380-1387.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2023.408

• Earth Surface Process • Previous Articles     Next Articles

An improved flow direction algorithm for sediment transport simulations

SHEN Xinyi1,2(), DAI Wen1(), LIU Aili1, TAO Yu3, ZHAO Chengyi1   

  1. 1. School of Geographical Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 211800, Jiangsu, China
    2. School of Geographical Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, Jiangsu, China
    3. Co-Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, Jiangsu, China
  • Received:2023-08-08 Revised:2023-11-24 Online:2024-08-25 Published:2024-09-02
  • Contact: DAI Wen E-mail:202083670052@nuist.edu.cn;wen.dai@nuist.edu.cn

Abstract:

Sediment transport process in catchments is a critical research area in the fields of geomorphology and surface dynamics. Numerous researchers have applied flow direction algorithms and topographic change detection to spatially infer sediment transport. However, the simple application of flow direction algorithms often leads to mass conservation issues during simulation. Therefore, an improved flow direction algorithm for sediment transport process simulation was developed. This algorithm ensures mass conservation by checking whether the sediment transport rate is negative; if it is negative, reset the rate to zero to prevent the spread of negative sediment transport rates downstream. Experiments were conducted using the D8, MFD-se, and MFD-md algorithms with the proposed improvements. The results are as follows: (1) The improved flow direction algorithm successfully eliminated negative values in the simulated sediment transport rate, thereby achieving the intended purpose. (2) The performance of the improved D8 algorithm increased by 1.26%. (3) The performance of the improved MFD-se algorithm increased by 4.17%, considerably enhancing sediment transport process simulations. (4) The performance of the improved MFD-md algorithm increased by 4.54%, further boosting the effectiveness of the sediment transport process simulations.

Key words: flow direction algorithm, digital elevation model, sediment transport rate, mass conservation, topographic change