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Terrain Analysis Using Digital Elevation Models (TauDEM)

TauDEM (Terrain Analysis Using Digital Elevation Models) is a suite of Digital Elevation Model (DEM) tools for the extraction and analysis of hydrologic information from topography as represented by a DEM. TauDEM provides the following capability:

  • Development of hydrologically correct (pit removed) DEMs using the flooding approach
  • Calculates flow paths (directions) and slopes
  • Calculates contributing area using single and multiple flow direction methods
  • Multiple methods for the delineation of stream networks including topographic form-based methods sensitive to spatially variable drainage density
  • Objective methods for determination of the channel network delineation threshold based on stream drops
  • Delineation of watersheds and subwatersheds draining to each stream segment and association between watershed and segment attributes for setting up hydrologic models
  • Specialized functions for terrain analysis, including:
    • Calculates the slope/area ratio that is the basis for the topographic wetness index
    • Calculates both the distance up to ridges and down to streams in horizontal, vertical, along slope and direct variants
    • Maps locations upslope where activities have an effect on a downslope location
    • Evaluates upslope contribution subject to decay or attenuation
    • Calculates accumulation where the uptake is subject to concentration limitations
    • Calculates accumulation where the uptake is subject to transport limitations
    • Evaluates reverse accumulation
    • Evaluates potential avalanche runout areas

What's New in Version 5.0 of TauDEM

  • Restructured into a parallel processing implementation of the TauDEM suite of tools
  • Works on Windows PCs, laptops and UNIX clusters
  • Multiple processes are not required, the parallel approach can run as multiple processes within a single processor
  • Restructured into a set of standalone command line executable programs and an ArcGIS toolbox Graphical User Interface (GUI)
  • Command line executables are:
    • Written in C++ using Argonne National Laboratory's MPICH2 library to implement message passing between multiple processes
    • Based on single set of source code for the command line execuables that is platform independent and can be compiled for both Window's PC's and UNIX clusters
  • The ArcGIS toolbox GUI:
    • Makes system calls to the command line executables to allow users to access the tools as standard ArcGIS toolbox tools
    • Runs under ArcGIS version 9.3.1 and version 10 on a Windows PC
  • Pre-compiled versions of TauDEM 5 are available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions
  • Runs under Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7
  • UNIX makefiles are included in the source code for Unix users to compile the execuables for their systems
  • All versions of TauDEM 5 require that Argonne National Laboratory's MPICH2 library be seperately installed
  • The GeoTiff file format is used for all grid input and output files to:
    • Permit generation of output grids on a system (e.g. cluster) that does not have ArcGIS installed
    • Allow for additional visualization options

Translation -Serbo-Croatian