topic Re: Sinuosity tools and automation in Water Resources Questions

Sinuosity tools and automation

GlennFischer — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 21:01:06 GMT

Hello all. I'm hoping this thread can provide some answers to myself as well as others. My research focuses on sinuosity of rivers in various environments. I'm looking to be able to calculate sinuosity within a moving window to get regularly spaced calculations. I have many rivers and river miles to study, so any way to automate these calculations would be great, too. Here are two of the tools I've found so far:

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1) Hawth's Analysis Tools provides a simple tool, but the it is only useful for single calculations of sinuosity over a given reach. This is a great tool but very limited. No moving window capability either.
Link: http://www.spatialecology.com/htools/linemetrics.php
(Analysis Tools - > Line Metrics -> Sinuosity)

2) Thomas Dilts' Stream Gradient and Sinuosity Toolbox seems to be the best tool(box) publicly available. It has a moving window option and a polygon option. Also gives the user the option to use "hardwired" or "regular" settings that deal with where the intermediate output files are written. Dilts also includes a 5-page tutorial in the form of a word document complete with pictures.
Link: http://arcscripts.esri.com/details.asp?dbid=16305

I've only be able to execute the "Discretize Gradient/Sinuosity Maps" tool so far, however. The other tools in the toolbox result in the dreaded "Invalid Tool: Unable to execute the selected tool" message. (I am using ArcMap 9.2, which the toolbox was designed in.)

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If anyone has any additional sinuosity resources, please post them below and include a link and short description if you'd like.

Also, if anyone has any fixes for the Stream Gradient and Sinuosity Toolbox errors I've encountered, please share them with us all. (I have also emailed Dilts directly, so if he responds, I will post the response here.)

Re: Sinuosity tools and automation

LornaMurison — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:04:58 GMT

I've been using sinuosity as a way to determine the percentage of streams that have been altered or straightened.

I did this by splitting rivers at each junction, and then dividing them into segments of no less than 250 meters (which we determined to be the minimum meander length for streams of our size). I then calculated sinuosity for each segment and applied a threshold value to determine whether it was deemed "natural" or "straightened".

Doesn't have a moving window or anything like that, but it works for a large area

Re: Sinuosity tools and automation

GlennFischer — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 17:29:27 GMT

Simple yet practical solution for getting a desired result. Very nice.

We've considered doing something like this but the fact that out project involves multiple rivers with various discharges has lead us to look for an approach that we can apply to all of our rivers.

Re: Sinuosity tools and automation

MelanieTluczek — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:03:31 GMT

I am attempting to use Thomas Dilts' Stream Gradient and Sinuosity Toolbox to get sinuosity information from pre-determined polygons and am getting the same set of error messages. I have all of the correct extensions enabled, so that should not be a problem. Has anyone found a fix for this? Thank you!

Re: Sinuosity tools and automation

GregGrabner — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:03:48 GMT

Has anyone tried using this in Arc10?

Re: Sinuosity tools and automation

JonathanPitchford — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 21:17:31 GMT

I have tried to use this tool in 10.0 and 9.3, but have not had any luck. I could at least attempt to run the tool in 9.3, but could not open the tool at all in 10.

Re: Sinuosity tools and automation

SarahTaigel — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:36:01 GMT

Marking place in cae of answers on the Dilts tool, LadyJane I think that is the way to go to evaluate river reaches

Re: Sinuosity tools and automation

DanielleQuist — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 02:15:33 GMT

I'm having troubles finding a code/tool to use to calculate Sinuosity in ArcGIS 10 for my study area (973 miles of river).

I found the attached code (Calculate_Sinuosity.txt) on the Esri's website, but I'm having trouble with the output. I have ran it as a script tool. No error messages come up, but there is no output produced (not even in the GP results window). If anyone has any insight it would be greatly appreciated.

Source of code (scroll down):
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#/What_is_a_Python_toolbox/001500000022000000/

Thanks!