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Terrain Analysis Using Digital Elevation Models (TauDEM)

TauDEM (Terrain Analysis Using Digital Elevation Models) is a suite of Digital Elevation Model (DEM) tools for the extraction and analysis of hydrologic information from topography as represented by a DEM. TauDEM provides the following capability:

• Development of hydrologically correct (pit removed) DEMs using the flooding approach
• Calculates flow paths (directions) and slopes
• Calculates contributing area using single and multiple flow direction methods
• Multiple methods for the delineation of stream networks including topographic form-based methods sensitive to spatially variable drainage density
• Objective methods for determination of the channel network delineation threshold based on stream drops
• Delineation of watersheds and subwatersheds draining to each stream segment and association between watershed and segment attributes for setting up hydrologic models
• Specialized functions for terrain analysis, including:

•  Calculates the slope/area ratio that is the basis for the topographic wetness index
  

•  Calculates both the distance up to ridges and down to streams in horizontal, vertical, along slope and direct variants
  

•  Maps locations upslope where activities have an effect on a downslope location
  

•  Evaluates upslope contribution subject to decay or attenuation
  

•  Calculates accumulation where the uptake is subject to concentration limitations
  

•  Calculates accumulation where the uptake is subject to transport limitations
  

•  Evaluates reverse accumulation
  

•  Evaluates potential avalanche runout areas
  

What's New in Version 6 of TauDEM

• Restructured to use the GDAL library for Input/Output

Key features from earlier versions

• Implemented to take advantage of parallel processing using message passing interface (MPI).
• Works on Windows PCs, laptops and UNIX clusters
• Includes a set of standalone command line executable programs and an ArcGIS toolbox Graphical User Interface (GUI)
• Command line executables are:

• Based on single set of source code for the command line execuables that is platform independent and can be compiled for both Window's PC's and UNIX clusters
  

• The ArcGIS toolbox GUI:

• Makes system calls to the command line executables to allow users to access the tools as standard ArcGIS toolbox tools
  

• Versions up to 5.0.6 runs under ArcGIS version 9.3.1 on a Windows PC
  

• Versions 5.1.x user interface written in Python for ArcGIS version 10
  

• Pre-compiled versions of TauDEM are available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions
• UNIX makefiles are included in the source code for Unix users to compile the execuables for their systems