Spatial Distribution of the Calculation Characteristics of the Main Phases of the Ice Regime in the Prypiat River Basin Within Ukraine With the Using Gis

Abstract

Maps of the spatial distribution of hydrological indicators are of great importance in the educational, scientific and practical spheres. There are very few maps dedicated to the spatial distribution of the characteristics of the ice regime of the rivers. The last thorough research on the creation of maps of the calculation characteristics of the appearance dates of ice phenomena and the freeze-up on the rivers of Ukraine was carried out in the 70s of the 20th century. In these maps, the Prypiat river basin is represented by observation data on the ice regime of rivers for only a few water gauges and, accordingly, such maps are the very general. In addition, such maps were created in the form of isolines on paper media by the manual interpolation. Along with this, the development of computer technology and geographic information systems (GIS) have changed the approaches to mapping hydrological characteristics. In modern research the hydrological maps are creating in the GIS in the form of digital layers using various methods of spatial interpolation. Therefore, the main objective of this research is the present the spatial distribution of the calculation characteristics of the main phases of the ice regime of the rivers of the Prypiat basin within Ukraine using the ArcGIS program. The research used information from 29 water gauges, based on the data of which the statistical indicators of the ice regime of the rivers of the Prypiat basin within Ukraine were calculated. For the creating of digital maps, such statistical parameters as the multi-year average value, the mean square deviation and the asymmetry coefficient were used, which were calculated for the main phases of the ice regime of the rivers, namely the appearance date of ice, date of freeze-up, break-up date (i.e., melt onset), date of ice disappearance in the Prypiat River basin within Ukraine. Maps were created in the form of digital layers by spline interpolation in the form of isolines, which allows you to get rid of subjective factors and improve the accuracy of such maps. On all created digital maps, the isolines are characterized by fairly smooth shapes, which, in general, reflect the zonal distribution of the characteristics of the ice regime of rivers. The analysis of the created of digital layers of the spatial distribution of the calculated characteristics of the ice regime of the rivers of the Pripyat basin, as well as the accuracy of their created, allow us to recommend such maps for practical use. The approach used in the research can be applied to create the spatial distribution of digital maps of the calculated characteristics of the ice regime of rivers for other basins, as well as other characteristics, for example, the duration of ice phenomena and freeze-up.