Drainage networks and watersheds delineation derived from TIN-based digital elevation models

•An algorithm to generate a drainage graph structure from a TIN model is proposed.•The drainage graph allows to derive drainage networks from accumulated flows.•An improvement on the procedure for removing flat areas from TINs is presented.•Drainage networks and watersheds are consistent with real-world drainage patterns.•The algorithms developed are computationally efficient with linear-time complexities.

Triangulated Irregular Networks (TIN) efficiently define terrain models from which drainage networks and watersheds can be extracted with important applications in hydrology. In this work, the TIN model is represented by a constrained Delaunay triangulation obtained from contour lines and sampled points. Paths of steepest descent calculated from the TIN are connected by processing the triangles according to an associated priority, then forming a drainage graph structure proposed to generate drainage networks from accumulated flows. Major problems such as flat areas and pits that create inconsistencies in the terrain model and discontinuities in flows are removed with procedures that interpolate the elevation values of particular points on the TIN. Drainage networks are defined by arbitrary threshold values, and their associated watersheds and subwatersheds are then delineated. TIN results are qualitatively and quantitatively compared to an available reference drainage network, and also to regular grid results generated with the TerraHidro system. The drainage networks automatically obtained from the drainage graph highly agree to the main courses of water on the terrain, indicating that the TIN is an attractive alternative terrain model for hydrological purposes, and that the proposed drainage graph can be used for the automatic extraction of drainage networks that are consistent with real-world hydrological patterns.