Topographic Wetness Index Computed Using Multiple Flow Direction

Algorithm and Local Maximum Downslope Gradient

Chengzhi Qina, A-xing Zhua,b, Lin Yanga,c, Baolin Lia, Tao Peia
a

State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environment Information System, Chinese Academy of
Science, Beijing 100101, P. R. China
{qincz, axing, yanglin, libl, peit}@lreis.ac.cn

Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA

c Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
ABSTRACT

Topographic wetness index (TWI) can quantify the control of local topography on hydrological processes and indicate
the spatial distribution of soil moisture and surface saturation. The formulation is TWI=ln(a/tan), where a is the upslope
contributing area per unit contour length and is the local gradient. Many of the existing flow-direction algorithms for
computing a use global partition exponent to allocate the flow among downslope neighboring cells, which lead to
unrealistic part itioning of flow. For approximating , the downslope gradient can reflect impacts of local terrain on local
drainage better than slope gradient at the point. This paper examines how TWI is impacted by computing a with a new
multiple-flow-direction algorithm and approximating with local maximum downslope gradient. The new multipleflow-direction algorithm is adaptive to local terrain conditions by altering the flow partition exponent based on local
maximum downslope gradient. The proposed approach for comp uting TWI was applied to a small catchment (about 60
km2 ) with low relief in the Nenjiang watershed in Northeastern China. The results show that the distribution of TWI by
the proposed approach is more adaptive to terrain conditions than widely-used algorithm for TWI.
Keywords: Gridded DEM , topographic wetness index, multiple flow direction algorithm, maximum downslope gradient

1. INTRODUCTION
The concept of topographic wetness index (TWI) is firstly presented by Beven and Kirkby (1979) [2]. Based on the
assumption that topography controls the movement of water in slopes terrain, TWI can quantify the control of local
topography on hydrological processes and indicate the spatial distribution of soil moisture and surface saturation. It
forms the key component of distributed hydrological model, TOPMODEL, and is used to characterize hydrological
similarity [1,2,7,12,14]. So TWI is an important index for modeling the topography-related geographical processes at
hillslope or catchment scale.
The calculation of TWI is usually based on the gridded DEMs and by formulation, TWI=ln(a/tan), where a is the
upslope contributing area per unit contour length and is the local gradient at the point. The value of TWI is influenced
by the algorithms to calculating a and estimating tan [4]. Computation of a is depended on flow direction algorithm.
There are two main types of flow direction algorithms [15]: Single Flow Direction (SFD) and Multiple Flow Direction
(MFD) algorithms . The bas ic idea of SFD algorithms (such as D8 algorithm implemented in ArcInfo software) is that all
water from a pixel should flow into one and only one neighboring pixel which has the lowest elevation. And MFD
assumes that flow from the current position could drain into more than one downslope neighboring pixel [13]. It has been

This study was funded through supports from a grant (40501056) from National Natural Science Foundation of China,
International Partnership Project Human Activities and Ecosystem Changes(CXTD-Z2005-1) of CAS, the Knowledge
Innovation Project of CAS, and the Hundred TalentsProgram of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

shown that MFD is obviously better than SFD when the spatial pattern of upslope contributing area o r TWI is computed
[8,15]
. Many of the existing MFD algorithms are based on the model proposed by Quinn et al. (1991) [13]:

di =

(tan i ) p Li
8

(tan j ) p L j

(1)

j =1

where d i is the fraction of flow into the i th neighboring cell; tan i is the slope gradient of the i th neighboring cell;
the exponent p is the flow partition exponent ( p > 0 ); Li is the effective contour lengthof pixel i . The value of Li
is 0.5 for pixels in cardinal directions and 0.354 for pixels in diagonal directions [13]. The global partition exponent p
leads to unrealistic partitioning of flow and thus unrealistic upslope contributing area [10].
Algorithm to approximate tan also impacts the calculation of TWI, especially in the areas with low relief. In areas with
very low value of slope gradient, the TWI value might be unrealistically large. And some special processes are necessary
for flat area which slope gradient is 0 [5,6,8,13,15]. Therefore, the approximation of slope gradient for calculating TWI is still
a problem.
In next section, this paper proposes an approach to TWI which computes a with a new MFD algorithm and approximates
tan with local maximum downslope gradient. Section 3 is an application of the proposed approach. Result and
discussion, and conclusion are presented in Section 4 and 5, respectively.

2. APPROACH TO CALCULATING TOPOGRAPHIC WETNESS INDEX

2.1 A new multiple-flow-direction algorithm (MFD-md)
Qin et al. (2007) [10] proposed a flow partition function, which can be adaptive to the local terrain conditions, instead of
the global flow partition in the MFD model proposed by Quinn et al. (1991) [13]. The new MFD model is

di =

(tan i ) f (e ) Li
8

(tan j )
j =1

f ( e)

Lj

(2)

where f (e) is flow partition function of local topographic attribute ( e ).

Based on the new MFD model, Qin et al. (2007) implemented a new MFD algorithm (MFD-md) by selecting f (e) as a
linear function of maximum downslope gradient [10], i.e.

f (e) = 8. 9 min( e,1) + 1.1

(3)

where min( e,1) is the minimum between e and 1; here e is tangent value of the maximum downslope gradient.
Quantitative evaluation using artificial surfaces has shown that the error of a computed using MFD-md is lower than that
of a computed by the widely used flow direction algorithms [10].
When MFD algorithm is applied, every pixel (besides the out-flowing pixel of study area) should have at least one
downslope neighboring pixel. A DEM pre-processing for removing depressions and flat areas is necessary. Among
current DEM pre -processing algorithms, Qin et al. (2006) [11] suggested to apply the algorithm proposed by Planchon and
Darboux (2001) [9] to DEM before applying MFD algorithm. This is because Planchon and Darboux (2001)s algorithm
can remove depressions and modify flat areas with a slope surface with a user-specific, very gentle slope gradient, which
is more reasonable to apply MFD to compute a than other DEM pre-processing algorithms [9]. This paper selects
Planchon and Darboux (2001)s algorithm [9] to pre-process DEM and then apply MFD-md to compute a for TWI.
2.2 Maximum downslope gradient applied in calculating topographic wetness index
When a in the formulation of TWI is to model the flow accumulation on every pixel from upslope, tan is to model the
local drainage potential. Hjerdt et al. (2004) argued that the downslope topography is an important factor for estimating a

hydraulic gradient [5]. Among the topographic attributes related to the local slope gradient, both Quinn et al. (1991) [13]
and Gntner et al. (2004) showed that some kind of local downslope gradient computed around the center cell and its
downslope neighboring cell can quantify flow of water better than the local slope gradient at the cell in explaining the
soil water content of catchment [4]. Therefore, we use maximum downslope gradient to approximate tan in the
formulation of TWI, which is corresponding to the idea of MFD-md. The DEM processed by Planchon and Darboux
(2001)s algorithm [9] has non-zero maximum downslope gradient on every pixel and same DEM is used to calculate a
and tan for TWI.

3. APPLICATION
The proposed approach for computing TWI is applied to a small catchment (about 60 km2 ) with low relief in the
Nenjiang watershed in Northeastern China (Fig. 1). The relief is about 100m and the average slope gradient is 2. The
grid size of DEM is 10m.

Fig. 1 Map and DEM of study area (Contours with a 5m interval of DEM )

a)
Fig. 2 a) Maximum downslope, and b) upslope contributing area per unit contour length, a, by MFD-md. DEM was preprocessed by Planchon and Darboux (2001)s algorithm [9] to remove depressions and float areas in original DEM.

b)

The maximum downslope gradient is computed (Fig. 2a) after removing depressions and flat areas in original DEM
using by Planchon and Darboux (2001)s algorithm [9]. And MFD-md is applied to calculate the upslope contributing
area per unit contour length, a (Fig. 2b). Fig. 2b shows that a by MFD-md has a much smoother spatial distribution
which the state of flow in the low relief areas is much more reasonable. The drawbacks of SFD, i.e. the inability to model
divergence of flow and the creation of parallel flow [13], are then avoided. Qin et al. (2007) [10] showed that a by MFDmd is more reasonable than that by Quinn et al. (1991) [13] (which is named as MFD-Quinnin this paper).

4. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

TWI is thus calculated by maximum downslope gradient and a resulted from MFD-md (Fig. 3a). Fig. 3a shows that the
value of TWI by the new approach changes smoothly from lower to higher when slope position transits from the top of
slope to foot-slope. In the flat and broad summit areas, the TWI has higher value than TWI of the nearing slope shoulder,
which means that the summit area has more potential to retain soil moisture than the nearby slope shoulders. The value
of TWI reaches the highest in channels. This spatial distribution of TWI can reasonably indicate the spatial pattern of soil
moisture in the study area.
For comparing the new approach with the Quinn-based approach (i.e., TWI computed by a from MFD-Quinn and slope
gradient calculated in ArcInfo software), the difference between TWI by new approach and TWI by the Quinn-based
approach is calculated (Fig. 3b). The negative value in Fig. 3b means that TWI value by new approach is smaller than it
by the Quinn-based approach. Generally shown in Fig. 3a, TWI by new approach has lower value in ridge and slope
shoulder than TWI by the Quinn-based approach. In the footslope and narrower channel and near the initial channel,
TWI by new approach has higher value than it by the Quinn-based approach. Note in areas of broad and gentle slopenose, TWI by new approach is also a little higher than it by the Quinn-based approach. We believe that this phenomenon
is due to the local terrain condition which is low-relief and straight slope. So the soil moisture in these areas should be
higher. In wide and flat valley where the TWI value is high, comparing with TWI by the Quinn-based approach, TWI by
new approach is often higher in the part of near footslope and lower in the middle part. We believe that TWI by new
approach is more reasonable because the soil moisture in wide and flat valley should be evenly wet, i.e. with high TWI
value evenly. Totally, the spatial distribution of TWI by new approach can better indicate the status (dryor wet) of
the soil moisture in the study area.

a)

Fig. 3 a) TWI by new approach, and b) the difference between TWI by new approach and the Quinn-based approach (i.e.,
TWI computed by a resulted from MFD-Quinn and slope gradient calculated in ArcInfo software). Negative value
means that TWI value by new approach is smaller than it by the Quinn-based approach.

b)

5. CONCLUSION
TWI is an important topographic index for modeling the topography-related geographical processes at hillslope or
catchment scale. This is because TWI can quantify the control of local topography on hydrological processes and
indicate the spatial distribution of soil moisture and surface saturation. The value of TWI is influenced by the algorithms
to calculate a and the approximation of tan. This paper proposed a new MFD algorithm (MFD-md) to calculating a.
MFD-md algorithm is adaptive to local terrain conditions by altering the flow partition exponent based on a linear
function of local maximum downslope gradient. So the flow accumulation from upslope can be modeled more
reasonably. And the maximum downslope gradient is proposed to approximating tan for TWI, which reflects the local
drainage potential. The proposed approach to calculating TWI was applied in a small catchment with low relief in
Northeast China. The result showed that the distribution of TWI by the proposed approach is more adaptive to terrain
conditions than widely-used approach to TWI does.
In the future research, more applications will be needed to quantitatively assess the proposed approach. Furthermore, it
should be also noticed that the spatial distribution of TWI in flat and wide valley is still not so reasonable, even when the
proposed approach is applied (Fig. 3a). In flat and wide valley, the soil moisture should be equably wet and spatially
smooth. This spatial distribution of soil moisture can be quantified by the mean of spatial distributions of TWI which are
computed from large numbers of DEM realizations by Monte Carlo model [3].

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