Abstract
Inland waters support the growth of several sectors including mining, agriculture, and health. This makes it crucial to have sustainable quantity and quality through conservation practices. Achieving sustainability requires information on the spatial distribution of water bodies. This requirement is particularly critical in low-income nations where dependence on natural resources is a key driver to economic growth. Unfortunately, these nations lack the resources to promote costly waterbody characterization. This study pre-sents a cost-effective approach in assigning Unique Identifiers (UIDs) that define locations and characteristics of rivers and streams. Our objective is to develop a scheme that can be used to identify and characterize rivers and streams in a nation. We utilized an open-source Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of NASA’s ASTER satellite and the hydrology tool in ArcGIS 10.7.1. The DEM was imported to ArcGIS followed by delineation of hydrologic regions, subregions, and stream orders. Each stream segment was given a UID based on its region and Strahler’s stream order system. We present a case study analysis for two regions within Sierra Leone using water quality data of selected rivers and streams. These will lay the foundation for a nationwide coding exercise and provide a useful reference for water resource practitioners.
Highlights
Inland water bodies provide development opportunities in sectors such as agriculture, energy, transportation, health and sanitation, housing, and recreation [1]
The Digital Elevation Model (DEM) was imported to ArcGIS followed by delineation of hydrologic regions, subregions, and stream orders
We suggest that the sources of PO34− such as open defecation and rock formations appear to be supplying the nutrient at a rate higher than its ability to become immobilized by bonding with iron (III) in the sediments
Summary
Inland water bodies provide development opportunities in sectors such as agriculture, energy, transportation, health and sanitation, housing, and recreation [1]. Conservation of these water bodies is crucial to achieve sustainable quantity and quality as well as tradeoffs that benefit populations, their economies, and natural ecosystems [2]. Information on the locations of tributaries provides the ability to study the spatial and temporal dynamics of aquatic biodiversity in a basin This information can help us study species migration patterns during different stages of development as well as delineating their permanent or seasonal locations and localizations [4]. These give us the ability to design sampling approaches that ensure water quality monitoring programs that can help successful water quality management [5]
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