Making Hypsographic Curve from Bathymetric Map

Bathymetric maps show the contours of a body of water. They illustrate the location of changing depths. From a bathymetric map, a hypsographic curve can be calculated to show the correlation betweem depth and area as well as depth and volume. The x-axis is placed on top with depths increasing vertically downwards to provide  a better visual of the body of water below sea level.

In class we calculated the area of a sample lake by creating a scale of square area which we could mass and then compare to the masses of each individual contour. This data produced the following hypsographic curve:

Next, to get the volume of the lake at each depth, we took an average area of the the upper and lower levels and then multiplied by our conversion factor from our scale (.103g = 10,000m^2.. so conversion factor is 10000/.103). This data produced  the following hypsographic curve:

The total volume of the lake is 820,730 m^3.


The following are useful resources for learning how to read bathymetric maps and  how to construct and interpret a hypsographic curve.