Study of Bedrock River Profile of Upper Catchment of Kosi River Using Integral Method Called as Chi Analysis

Abstract

Abstract: Bedrock Rivers are generally interpreted with help of slope –area analysis, but noisy data makes such interpretation difficult. An integration of steady state form of stream power equation is applied. This integral method has the potential to provide precise quantity information about erosion rates and their temporal and spatial variations over areas of which topographic data are available. The chi (χ) value is dependent upon area upstream of channel, so an increase or decrease in the drainage area of river can be used to find the equilibrium across a drainage divide. Such that the rivers with same base level and uniform uplift and erosion tends to remain in steady state across the divide but any change in the base level because of tectonics or climate can force the river systems to move towards a unsteady state condition across the divide. We illustrate these applications with analyses of Kosi river profile extracted from digital topographic datasets. Keywords: Bedrock River, integration, stream power, topographic data, chi (χ) value, Channel, Drainage divide, drainage area, base level, Kosi river.