Automatic detection of fault-controlled rivers using spatial pattern matching

Abstract

The river system of a region records its tectonic evolution. This study expects to infer some potential faults by effectively quantifying river morphology and identifying rivers with specific morphological and structural characteristics. Thus, this study aims to develop a novel method for automatically detecting fault-controlled rivers (FCRs) from drainage maps using spatial pattern matching and to support the scientific inference of potential faults. The method involves (1) constructing a scene model for the entire drainage basin in the study area based on the attributed relational graph (ARG) model; (2) defining spatial patterns for four types of FCRs using the ARG model, including straight river reaches, right-angle river reaches, barb rivers, and contra-aperture rivers, and storing all river patterns in a spatial pattern library; and (3) detecting the four types of FCRs with a spatial pattern-matching algorithm and the FCR pattern library. Case studies demonstrated the basic effectiveness of this method for detecting FCRs in the study areas of Bomi County (Parong Tsangpo River Valley and Yigong Zangbo River Valley) and southeast of the Qinghai Tibet Plateau. The goals of this study are to quantify river shape better, support the preliminary detection of potential faults, and provide a useful reference for structure-based spatial queries in GIS. Additionally, more river pattern types with specific morphological and structural characteristics can be automatically detected through dynamic maintenance of the spatial pattern library.