Hydrological and geomorphological study of the San Francisco Bay area

Περίληψη

California is located in one of the Earth's most tectonically active areas, where San Andreas fault system that crosses the state has provoked a series of major earthquakes. In addition, San Francisco has experienced a long history of such phenomena that almost destroyed the entire city in the past. In this paper we investigate the hydrological network and the tectonic setting of the San Francisco bay area (fig. 1) which includes a vast number of lakes, rivers and structural systems, among which the most tectonic active parts of San Andreas Fault, making it a quite interest case study. In order to achieve this information, a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of San Francisco bay area was processed through ArcGIS and MATLAB softwares which allowed to obtain results such the hydrological network and fault system, while extracted maps and plots provided more specific information. These output showed the composite catchment of the study area which is a result of its complex and dense tectonic background that triggers a lot of seismic breakups.