Analisi computerizzata della orientazione di tratti di reticolo idrografico e implicazioni neotettoniche: un esempio nell'area Umbro-Marchigiana

Computer-aided analysis of the orientation of fluvial network segments and neotectonic implications: an example in the Umbria-Marche area

Abstract

A method of statistical analysis for the study of the orientation of drainage network segments is presented: it makes extensive use of automatic data processing techniques, employing a personal computer by means of expressly developed software. Information on surficial hydrography is gleaned starting from topographic maps: drainage elements are rectified, hierarchized, and measured, while the area under study (which must be rectangular) is divided into geometrically equivalent elementary units according to a uniform grid. For each of the squares thus identified, the cumulative length and the total number of fluvial segments are calculated separately for each hierarchical order and for each of the considered directions. The data so obtained are stored in a computer, which uses them to generate different kinds of graphics, pertinent both to each single territorial unit and to any chosen clusters of them, as well as to the entire investigated area. An application of the aforementioned methodology on a model area of more than 1,500 square km belonging to the Umbria-Marche domain is then reported. The results thus obtained are finally related to the geological-structural setting of the area, which is sufficiently well known.