Stream ordering

Stream ordering refers to the determination of the hierarchical position of a

stream within a drainage basin. A river basin consists of its several branches.
Having different position in the basin area and they have their own morpho
metric characteristics. So it is necessarily to locate the relative position of a
segment in the basin to visualized hierarchical organization of stream
segments.

• Stream order is defined as a measure of the position of a stream in the

hierarchy of tributaries.

• Horton’s scheme of stream ordering.

Horton’s Scheme of Stream Ordering.

R.E.Horton:-
R.E.Horton was on American engineer, presented his scheme of
stream ordering in 1932, 1945.accoading to Horton ordering of stream
begins from the finger-tip tributaries, which do not have their own feeders,
Such finger-tip stream are known as 1st order streams . Two stream of 1st
order when join together from 2nd order stream below junction. Similarly two
stream of 2nd order meet to make the stream of 3rd order and process
continues till the trunk µµhave additional 1st & 2nd order streams.

According to Horton scheme when two stream of same order meet

they form the next highest order than its own order.

A.N.Strahler:- (also known as stream segment method)

Define stream of different order, all the initial unbanked source
tributaries were called or named as first order stream .when two 1st order
stream join they form a 2nd order. When two 2nd order streams merge they
form a 3rd order stream and so on. According to strahler two stream
segments of equal order are required to form higher order, order remains
unchanged if a lower order segment join a higher order segment.

E.g. 2nd order + 2nd order=3rd order

 2nd order + 3rd order=3rd order

Relationship between stream order and number,

Bifurcation ratio:-

• R.E. Horton’s law of stream number (1945):-

“The number of stream segment of successively lower orders in a

given basis tends to form a geometric series beginning with the single
segment of the higher order and increases according to constant
Bifurcation ratio”

E.g. If main stream is of 6th order and B.R.is 4 the number of stream
segment from higher to lower order is (i.e. ,65,4,3,2,1) would be
1,4,16,64,256,1024 respectively.

• Law is express in the following from of negative exponential function

models

Nµ = R b
(k-µ)

Nµ= Nm.of stream segment of a given order.

R b = constant bifurcation ratio.

µ = basin order of the basin

e.g.:- a) 4(6-1) = 4(5) =1024

b) 4(6-5) = 4(4) =256

Basin Stream num.(Nµ) Bifurcation ratio

order(µ) (Rb)
1 256 4.0
2 64 4.0
3 16 4.0
4 4 4.0
5 1 4.0
 ∑ Nµ=341

Following regression egn of negative exponential function helps in

ascertaining the law of stream number.

Log y = loga – bx
y = num.of stream segment.
x = stream order
a=constant

b=regression coefficient

Relationship between stream

order/number/length/Basin area.
If the number of segment in a stream order is plotted on a semi-log graph
against the stream order, then the resultant be best-fit line coil be straight.

On a semi-log graph the vertical scale showing the dependent variable is

divided in to cycle.

E.g. Range of 1 to 10, 10 to 100,100 to 1000 and so on

a) Perfect Negative correlation

Perfect Negative correlation as the independent variable (stream

order) increases then the dependent variable (number of stream) decreases.

• Study of stream ordering for most rivers in the world shows similar
straight line relationship.

• Relationship also exists between stream order/stream number/stream

length/basin areas.

Basin ordering
Sr. Stream Stream num Area Bifurcatio Stream
No order n Ratio length
Horton Strahler