Research on stream flow series fractal dimension analysis and its relationship with soil erosion

Stream flow series analysis is of great importance for watershed management such as water conservation, water quality control etc. How to describe the characteristic of stream flow, particularly quantify stream flow variability, has been the subject of numerous studies. Due to the fact that stream flow process usually suffers from strong natural and anthropogenic disturbances, it is hardly to measure the chaotic characteristic by pure statistic method. This paper applied fractal concept for steam flow series analysis. The fractal dimension of the daily stream flow of Malian Basin was estimated using box-counting method. The result showed that the fractal dimension of the main stream and downstream gauging stations is higher than that of the tributary, headwater gauging stations. From the correlative and regress analyze of stream flow fractal dimension and soil erosion we found that the two has distinct relativity, which can bring forward a new method for the study of watershed management and so on. This could come to a conclusion stream flow series fractal dimension analysis could be a potential approach for watershed management.