Drainage Morphometric Characteristics

ABSTRACT The morphometric characteristics and their related parameters of Venkatagiri watershed have been quan-titatively derived using the topographical maps on a scale of 1:50,000. The Venkatagiri watershed covers an area of 1164 Km2 and the river originates from Velikonda hill ranges and flows from south-west to north-east and joins the Upputeru river before it joins the Bay of Bengal. The relative relief of the watershed is 1028 mts, and the major rock types of the area are gran-ites and gneisses. The dendritic pattern of drainage is observed because of the presence of granites and gneisses to a large extent in the watershed area. The Venkatagiri watershed is a 6th order stream and elongated in shape. The bifurcation ratio is 4.24 indicates the mature stage of development of the watershed. The other morphometric parameters such as drainage density, frequency, stream length ratio, elongation ratio and circularity ratios are also analyzed which shows the relationship among the various attributes o