Tool NameUpslope and Downslope Curvature
Tool ID26
Library IDta_morphometry
Version1.0
Author(s)P.Gandelli, O.Conrad (c) 2015

Description

This tool first calculates the local curvature of a cell as sum of the gradients (i.e. tangens of slope) to its neighbour cells. This is a simple estimation of the general curvature and is strongly correlated with general curvatures calculated with other methods (e.g. Zevenbergen & Thorne 1987). Then upslope curvature is calculated as the distance and flow proportional weighted average local curvature over a cell's upslope contributing area following the multiple flow direction algorithm after Freeman (1991). In a similar way the downslope curvature is calculated by summarizing the curvatures of all hydrologically downslope connected cells. The local upslope/downslope curvatures just take the immediately neighboured cells into account.

Parameters

NameTypeIdentifierDescriptionConstraints
Input
Elevationgrid, inputDEM
Output
Local Curvaturegrid, outputC_LOCAL
Upslope Curvaturegrid, outputC_UP
Local Upslope Curvaturegrid, outputC_UP_LOCAL
Downslope Curvaturegrid, outputC_DOWN
Local Downslope Curvaturegrid, outputC_DOWN_LOCAL
Options
Upslope Weightingfloating point numberWEIGHTINGMinimum: 0.000000
Maximum: 1.000000
Default: 0.500000