Shapes of river networks
River network scaling laws describe how their shape varies with their size. However, the regional variation of this size-dependence remains poorly understood. Here we show that river network scaling laws vary systematically with the climatic aridity index. We find that arid basins do not change thei...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The Royal Society
2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126787 |
| _version_ | 1811074733372866560 |
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| author | Yi, Robert Sngho Arredondo, Álvaro Stansifer, Eric Marshall Rothman, Daniel H. |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Yi, Robert Sngho Arredondo, Álvaro Stansifer, Eric Marshall Rothman, Daniel H. |
| author_sort | Yi, Robert Sngho |
| collection | MIT |
| description | River network scaling laws describe how their shape varies with their size. However, the regional variation of this size-dependence remains poorly understood. Here we show that river network scaling laws vary systematically with the climatic aridity index. We find that arid basins do not change their proportions with size, while humid basins do. To explore why, we study an aspect ratio L /L ∥ between basin width L and basin length L ∥. We find that the aspect ratio exhibits a dependence on climate and argue that this can be understood as a structural consequence of the confluence angle. We then find that, in humid basins, the aspect ratio decreases with basin size, which we attribute to a common hydrogeological hierarchy. Our results offer an explanation of the variability in network scaling exponents and suggest that the absence of self-similarity in humid basins can be understood as a morphological expression of subsurface processes. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:54:30Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/126787 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:54:30Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | The Royal Society |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1267872022-09-26T14:30:22Z Shapes of river networks Yi, Robert Sngho Arredondo, Álvaro Stansifer, Eric Marshall Rothman, Daniel H. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences River network scaling laws describe how their shape varies with their size. However, the regional variation of this size-dependence remains poorly understood. Here we show that river network scaling laws vary systematically with the climatic aridity index. We find that arid basins do not change their proportions with size, while humid basins do. To explore why, we study an aspect ratio L /L ∥ between basin width L and basin length L ∥. We find that the aspect ratio exhibits a dependence on climate and argue that this can be understood as a structural consequence of the confluence angle. We then find that, in humid basins, the aspect ratio decreases with basin size, which we attribute to a common hydrogeological hierarchy. Our results offer an explanation of the variability in network scaling exponents and suggest that the absence of self-similarity in humid basins can be understood as a morphological expression of subsurface processes. United States. Department of Energy. Office of Basic Energy Sciences. Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences Division (Award FG02-99ER15004) 2020-08-25T14:09:53Z 2020-08-25T14:09:53Z 2018-07 2020-08-24T16:50:58Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1471-2946 1364-5021 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126787 Yi, Robert S. et al. “Shapes of river networks.” Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 474, 2215 (July 2018): 20180081 © 2018 The Author(s) en 10.1098/RSPA.2018.0081 Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf The Royal Society Prof. Rothman via Chris Sherratt |
| spellingShingle | Yi, Robert Sngho Arredondo, Álvaro Stansifer, Eric Marshall Rothman, Daniel H. Shapes of river networks |
| title | Shapes of river networks |
| title_full | Shapes of river networks |
| title_fullStr | Shapes of river networks |
| title_full_unstemmed | Shapes of river networks |
| title_short | Shapes of river networks |
| title_sort | shapes of river networks |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126787 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT yirobertsngho shapesofrivernetworks AT arredondoalvaro shapesofrivernetworks AT stansiferericmarshall shapesofrivernetworks AT rothmandanielh shapesofrivernetworks |