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How To Determine Slopes and Gradients

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Malcolm Murugan
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15 views

How To Determine Slopes and Gradients

Uploaded by

Malcolm Murugan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How to work with slopes and

gradients

Department of Geography
GGH1501

Compiled by Mnr C Hamann and adapted from a PowerPoint slide originally developed for second year
students by Mnr AC Vlok and Mnr J Immelman
Why do we need to know about
slopes and gradients?
• To plan the routes of roads and railway lines over and
around mountains
• To know where we need to put up warning signs for heavy
vehicles to engage to lower gears.
• To prevent erosion by identifying areas that are too steep
for cultivation
• To know how you should lay the paving in the back yard
so that rain water drains into the garden and not into the
kitchen
Identifying steep slopes

• Imagine the following triangles are side views of the


terrain that four mountaineers have to overcome between
point B and C:

• Can you arrange the triangles from least steep to most


steep?
– The answer is 3, 4, 1, 2.
Identifying steep slopes
• What made you decide on the specific
order?
– The size of the angles ABC
– The larger the angle, the steeper the terrain
– As the angle of ABC becomes larger, the slope
of line BC becomes steeper
Recapping

• We use slope analysis to make informed


decisions about the elevation changes in a
area
• Slope is the steepness (expressed as an
angle) of a straight line (in our case line
BC)
• Slope is a quantitative measure use to
described steepness
How to measure slope in the real
world
• You can calculate slope and average
gradient by applying some basic arithmetic
and trigonometrical principles
• All you need is some information from a
topographic map
– The horizontal distance between two points
– The vertical elevation difference between the
two points
Calculating slope and gradient

• Lets use triangle 4 as our example


90⁰

• Note that this a right-angled triangle (90⁰


angle at point A
• In order to reach point C the mountaineer
moved in a vertical plane (A  C) and a
horizontal plane (B  A)
Calculating slope and gradient

• Remember that with a right-angled triangle we can


accept that the slope of the line BC is a function of
the ration between the vertical interval (VI) and
the horizontal equivalent (HE)

𝑉𝐼 VI
• Thus, gradient =
𝐻𝐸 90⁰

HE
• In other words we can also describe
the steepness in terms of gradient
Calculating slope and gradient

• Triangle ABC is a right-angled triangle


• Sides AB and AC is of equal length, thus the
angles ABC and ACB are the same size, 45⁰

45⁰
VI
90⁰

HE
Calculating slope and gradient

• The formula for calculating the gradient of line


BC is:
𝐿𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑟 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑙 𝑉𝐼
or
𝐿𝑒𝑛𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑜𝑟 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑧𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝐻𝐸

• Since AC and AB is the same length, the answer


1
in this case would be:
1
Calculating slope and gradient
• You can also calculate the slope angles and gradient using
the trigonometrical functions on your calculator
– Make sure your calculator is set to DEG (acronym for degrees)
– If you know the angle, select the Tan function, type 45 and press
1
enter. Your answer should be 1.0 (or )
1
 This means the gradient of an angle of 45⁰ is 1.0

– If you know the gradient, select the Tan-1 function, type 1 and
press enter. Your answer should be 45⁰
 This means the angle associated with a gradient of 1 is 45⁰
Calculating slope and gradient

• How do we do all of this on a topographical


map?
• Lets consider the following example:
– The map scale is 1:50 000
– Point A and point B on the map is 5 cm from each other
– Point A is at a height above sea level of 250 m
– Point B is at a height above sea level of 125 m
Calculating slope and gradient
𝑉𝐼
• Remember that gradient =
𝐻𝐸

– Thus we need to calculate VI and HE


– VI = Height A – Height B
= 250 m – 125 m
= 125 m

– HE = map distance x map scale


= 5 cm x 50 000
= 250 000 cm
= 2 500 m
Calculating slope and gradient

𝑉𝐼 125 𝑚
• Thus gradient = =
𝐻𝐸 2500 𝑚
• Now you need to convert this to a ratio of
“1” to “x”
125 𝑚 1
• Thus becomes and we can express
2500 𝑚 20
this as a gradient of 1 : 20
Test yourself

• Can you display this (1 : 20) gradient


graphically by means of a triangle?
• What implications does this gradient have
for housing and road construction?

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