Influence of resolution on elevation and slope at watershed scale in Loess Plateau

Abstract This article studied the effects of resolution on elevation and slope using Statistical and Geostatistical methods. Xian' Nan watershed in Loess Plateau was taking as the study area. The base data was a 1:10000 topographic map and the resolutions studied in this paper included 5 m, 25 m and 50 m. The results showed that: (1) for elevation and slope data, the mean value, STD value, histogram and semi-variogram changed with resolution reduction. The mean value, STD value became smaller in both elevation and slope cases. Histograms moved to the left which shows there was a decrease of elevation and slope with resolution. The sill for semi-variograms of elevation and slope decreased with resolution reduction; (2) the changes of Mean value; STD and histogram were greater in elevation data than in slope data. (3) By using the Independent Structure model, the semi-variogram could be modeled by 4 components for elevation data and the semi-variogram could be modeled by 3 components for slope data. There was more information in slope than in elevation in the components with short range (short wave-length) information. (4) The influence of resolution reduction was greater in the components with short range, so the degree of influence of resolution reduction was related to the amount of short wave-lengths information. The results of this paper had shown which information was lost with resolution reduction and the reason for the different changes on mean value, STD and histogram for elevation and slope. It could also be used to explain different scaling effects in different terrain areas in the future.