American Journal of Environmental Science 9 (5): 398-409, 2013 ISSN: 1553-345X ©2013 Science Publication doi:10.3844/ajessp.2013.398.409 Published Online 9 (5) 2013 (http://www.thescipub.com/ajes.toc) 398 Science Publications AJES Geomorphology Using Geographic Information System and Globel Mapper Emad Akawwi Department of Surveying and Geomatics, Engineering Faculty, Al-Balqa Applied University, Salt 19117, Jordan Received 2013-09-02, Revised 2013-09-13; Accepted 2013-09-18 ABSTRACT An effort has been made to evaluate drainage morphometry and its influence on landform processes, geology and erosion characteristics in Jordan Valley and surrounding area. Geological maps 1:50,000 scale and the professional Google Earth images were used for analysis of various morphometric, lithological and landform characteristics of Jordan Valley basin. Morphometric analysis was carried out at sub basin level using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Globel Mapper (GM) to analyze the influence of drainage morphometry on landforms, drainage pattern and land erosion. Different landforms were recognized in the basin based on visual exposition of 3D Digital Elevation Model (DEM) that obtained from the thousands of points of the elevations by using GIS and GM, escarpments, plateau spurs, narrow wadies “vallies” and main wadies floor, foot slopes. The sub basins that take number 2, 5 and 6 are associated with high density dentritic drainage pattern because of impermeable formation and high slope then high surface runoff and high erosion. The sub basins number 1, 3, 4 are associated to a low density dentritic drainage pattern due to the topography of the area that is flat shape and the formation is impermeable. A1, A2 and A3 are a trellis drainage pattern with high density because of the moderate slope and high fracturing formation. Keywords: Drainage, GIS, GM, Jordan Valley, DEM 1. INTRODUCTION Erosion of soil and the underlying regolith is an example of a natural process that can be strongly accelerated by land use-human being activities and climate changes. Drainages erode their beds in three ways. The first one is the difference of the topography, the second way is the scrape and the third one is the solution. Streams can change from one season to the other depending on the precipitation and the difference on the temperature. Because that, it’s very useful to describe the aspects of the stream and its variables. The stream variables including velocity, slope or gradient, the shape of the drainage and densities and streams discharge. The remote sensing and GIS techniques were used by (Vijayan et al., 2013) for determining the quantitative description of the basin geometry. In GIS, the stream network is represented by a network of connected line features, which can be digitized from topographic maps or (semi-) automatically derived from a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) (Talling et al., 1997; Soille et al., 2003; Vogt et al., 2003; Abubaker et al., 2012). Similarly, the associated watersheds are represented by polygon features. Using consistent GIS tools on the same DEM to derive both streams and watershed divides results in geometrically consistent datasets of streams and watersheds. Manually digitized data often require time-consuming editing. In any case, basic GIS functionality leaves the hydrologist with separate, geometrically consistent datasets of the stream network and watersheds, but the inherent hierarchy determined by the tree structure of a stream network is not automatically captured. There are ongoing initiatives representing surface topography accurately and effectively is critical to support various types of inquires in geography and geosciences. The digital elevation models were used by many researchers for various applications, for instance flood control and hazard mapping (Wise, 2000; Bower, 2010). Chu et al. (2010) delineated the watersheds by developing algorithm.