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Volume XI |

The Studineț Basin (Tutova Hills). Morphometric Indicators and Correlations

Abstract: The morphometric analysis doesn’t imply just the quantitative description of the relief, although it is frequently limited to it, but also a methodological approach that allows the typological classification of landforms and establishing some significant correlations between the selected parameters and other geomorphologic, geologic indicators etc. The testing and validation of such analyses is performed upon representative samples on different scales. This article aims to interpret some morphometric indicators and correlations within the Studineţ hydrographical basin (9669 ha), located in the central part of the Tutova Hills, in the eastern part of Romania. The region’s relief is grafted on sandy-clayey and clayey-loamy deposits from the Kersonian and Meotian, being characterized by a relatively high fragmentation for a hillyregion (Jeanrenaud, 1971, 1995). The maximum altitude gap ranges between 108.9 and 485.5 m, and the relief energy values facilitate morphodynamic imbalances expressed through different geomorphological processes. The main characteristic is the presence of cuestas with morphometric, morphodynamic and land use asymmetries. The present scientific approach analyzes every derived map by interpreting the unclassified rasters (pixel value) and the classified ones (class value), comparing the relevance of the results to obtain the optimal number of classes and to establish the limits that have the best geomorphological level of significance. Given the region’s features, the analysis of cuestas was favored to differentiate the cuesta fronts and backslopes. Finally, on a representative perimeter within the basin, the raster histograms (hypsometry, declivity, exposition) were compared, to highlight the differentiations caused by the map scale and pixel resolution.