Evaluation of Morphometric Parameters of Paleo-river by GIS application in Kufrah basin SE Libya

Abstract A great buried paleo-river in SE Libya have been discovered by various approaches of remote sensing and GIS techniques. The buried river was running through the Kufrah basin and drained eastern part of Libya externally to the Mediterranean Sea via Sahabi Valley and lately has changed to be drained internally into the inland delta of the Al-Jaghbub depression. In the current study a DEM with 30m spatial resolution is used to delineate and morphometrically analyse the network streams of the Kufrah paleo-river. The results show that the study area is a flat area with low relief topography, low moisture content and high evaporation rate. The drainage pattern of the Kufrah paleo-river is a dendritic pattern with the 7th order of streams. The network streams over a permeable sub-surface material, high infiltration capacity with very coarse texture, and low run-off. The Kufrah river can be described as an “Old age” river, and it’s highly eroded and dissected drainage basin.