• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.126-138
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• 2017

Recently, the national interest in environment is increasing and for dealing with water environment-related issues swiftly and accurately, the demand to facilitate the analysis of water environment data using a GIS is growing. To meet such growing demands, a spatial network data-based stream network analysis map(Korean Reach File; KRF) supporting spatial analysis of water environment data was developed and is being provided. However, there is a difficulty in delineating catchment areas, which are the basis of supplying spatial data including relevant information frequently required by the users such as establishing remediation measures against water pollution accidents. Therefore, in this study, the development of a computer program was made. The development process included steps such as designing a delineation method, and developing an algorithm and modules. DEM(Digital Elevation Model) and FDR(Flow Direction) were used as the major data to automatically delineate catchment areas. The algorithm for the delineation of catchment areas was developed through three stages; catchment area grid extraction, boundary point extraction, and boundary line division. Also, an add-in catchment area delineation module, based on ArcGIS from ESRI, was developed in the consideration of productivity and utility of the program. Using the developed program, the catchment areas were delineated and they were compared to the catchment areas currently used by the government. The results showed that the catchment areas were delineated efficiently using the digital elevation data. Especially, in the regions with clear topographical slopes, they were delineated accurately and swiftly. Although in some regions with flat fields of paddles and downtowns or well-organized drainage facilities, the catchment areas were not segmented accurately, the program definitely reduce the processing time to delineate existing catchment areas. In the future, more efforts should be made to enhance current algorithm to facilitate the use of the higher precision of digital elevation data, and furthermore reducing the calculation time for processing large data volume.