Multiple Equidistant Belt Technique for Width Function Estimation
through A Two-Segmented-Distance Strategy
Abstract
The arbitrary adoption of cell center to represent the whole cell is a
compromise to the grid structure of the digital elevation models (DEMs),
which greatly limits the accuracy of estimating flow distance and width
functions. This study uses the triangulation with linear interpolation
(TLI) method to approximate the missing flow distance values within a
cell except for the cell center. A new flow distance algorithm (D∞-TLI)
is proposed to improve the flow distance estimation by using a
two-segment-distance strategy. The first segment distance from a cell
center to a crossing point at the local 3 × 3 window boundary is modeled
by the D∞ method. The second segment distance souring from the crossing
point is estimated by the TLI using the flow distance values assigned
for the two closest downstream cell centers, while these values have
been assigned by iterating from lowest to highest cells. Then, using the
continuous flow distance field approximated over a cell region, this
cell can be divided into multiple equidistant belts (MEB) to estimate
the width function. Four numerical terrains and two real-world terrains
are used for assessments. The results demonstrate that D∞-TLI
outperforms nine existing flow distance algorithms over any numerical
terrains, and it is overall optimal for real-world terrains. Meanwhile,
MEB extracts the width function which is less affected by unreasonable
artificial fluctuation than the previous method. Hence, MEB combined
with D∞-TLI can obtain a high-accuracy estimation of
hydro-geomorphological attributes that may be conducive to the
application of hydrologic modeling.