Fractal analysis of tidal channels in the Bahı́a Blanca Estuary (Argentina)

The fractal dimension (D) was estimated for nine tidal channels depicted in thematic mapper (TM) Landsat-5 imagery to derive information about the degree of geomorphological control on a tidal channel network characteristic of the Bahı́a Blanca Estuary (Argentina). Two methods, box counting and contiguity, were used to estimate fractal dimensions for each tidal channel. All channels produced D values close to 1, meaning that they are self-affine fractal features. However, these fractal dimensions do not represent the meandering pattern complexity characteristic of the tidal channels analysed. Although both methods allowed for estimation of D, the contiguity method showed that three of the channels actually are not fractal but have sinusoidal characteristics, a condition that was not detected by the former method.