scholarly journals The role of lateral erosion in the evolution of nondendritic drainage networks to dendricity and the persistence of dynamic networks

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (16) ◽  
pp. e2015770118
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Kwang ◽  
Abigail L. Langston ◽  
Gary Parker

Dendritic, i.e., tree-like, river networks are ubiquitous features on Earth’s landscapes; however, how and why river networks organize themselves into this form are incompletely understood. A branching pattern has been argued to be an optimal state. Therefore, we should expect models of river evolution to drastically reorganize (suboptimal) purely nondendritic networks into (more optimal) dendritic networks. To date, current physically based models of river basin evolution are incapable of achieving this result without substantial allogenic forcing. Here, we present a model that does indeed accomplish massive drainage reorganization. The key feature in our model is basin-wide lateral incision of bedrock channels. The addition of this submodel allows for channels to laterally migrate, which generates river capture events and drainage migration. An important factor in the model that dictates the rate and frequency of drainage network reorganization is the ratio of two parameters, the lateral and vertical rock erodibility constants. In addition, our model is unique from others because its simulations approach a dynamic steady state. At a dynamic steady state, drainage networks persistently reorganize instead of approaching a stable configuration. Our model results suggest that lateral bedrock incision processes can drive major drainage reorganization and explain apparent long-lived transience in landscapes on Earth.

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Martin Turowski

Abstract. Rivers are dynamical systems that are thought to evolve towards a steady-state configuration. Then, geomorphic parameters, such as channel width and slope, are constant over time. In the mathematical description of the system, the steady state corresponds to a fixed point in the dynamic equations in which all time derivatives are equal to zero. In alluvial rivers, steady state is characterized by grade. This can be expressed as a so-called order principle: an alluvial river evolves to achieve a state in which sediment transport is constant along the river channel and is equal to transport capacity everywhere. In bedrock rivers, steady state is thought to be achieved with a balance between channel incision and uplift. The corresponding order principle is the following: a bedrock river evolves to achieve a vertical bedrock incision rate that is equal to the uplift rate or base-level lowering rate. In the present work, considerations of process physics and of the mass balance of a bedrock channel are used to argue that bedrock rivers evolve to achieve both grade and a balance between channel incision and uplift. As such, bedrock channels are governed by two order principles. As a consequence, the recognition of a steady state with respect to one of them does not necessarily imply an overall steady state. For further discussion of the bedrock channel evolution towards a steady state, expressions for adjustment timescales are sought. For this, a mechanistic model for lateral erosion of bedrock channels is developed, which allows one to obtain analytical solutions for the adjustment timescales for the morphological variables of channel width, channel bed slope, and alluvial bed cover. The adjustment timescale to achieve steady cover is of the order of minutes to days, while the adjustment timescales for width and slope are of the order of thousands of years. Thus, cover is adjusted quickly in response to a change in boundary conditions to achieve a graded state. The resulting change in vertical and lateral incision rates triggers a slow adjustment of width and slope, which in turn affects bed cover. As a result of these feedbacks, it can be expected that a bedrock channel is close to a graded state most of the time, even when it is transiently adjusting its bedrock channel morphology.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Essery ◽  
Hyungjun Kim ◽  
Libo Wang ◽  
Paul Bartlett ◽  
Aaron Boone ◽  
...  

Abstract. Thirty-year simulations of seasonal snow cover in 22 physically based models driven with bias-corrected meteorological reanalyses are examined at four sites with long records of snow observations. Annual snow cover durations differ widely between models but interannual variations are strongly correlated because of the common driving data. No significant trends are observed in starting dates for seasonal snow cover, but there are significant trends towards snow cover ending earlier at two of the sites in observations and most of the models. A simplified model with just two parameters controlling solar radiation and sensible heat contributions to snowmelt spans the ranges of snow cover durations and trends. This model predicts that sites where snow persists beyond annual peaks in solar radiation and air temperature will experience rapid decreases in snow cover duration with warming as snow begins to melt earlier and at times of year with more energy available for melting.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Martin Turowski

Abstract. Rivers are dynamical systems that are thought to evolve towards a steady state configuration. Then, geomorphic parameters, such as channel width and slope, are constant over time. In the mathematical description of the system, the steady state corresponds to a fixed point in the dynamic equations in which all time derivatives are equal to zero. In alluvial rivers, steady state is characterised by grade. This can be expressed as a so-called order principle: An alluvial river evolves to achieve a state in which sediment transport is constant along the river channel, and is equal to transport capacity everywhere. In bedrock rivers, steady state is thought to be achieved with a balance between erosion and uplift. The corresponding order principle is: A bedrock river evolves to achieve a vertical bedrock incision rate that is equal to the uplift rate or baselevel lowering rate. Within the present paper, considerations of process physics and of the mass balance of a bedrock channel are used to argue that bedrock rivers evolve to achieve both grade and a balance between erosion and uplift. As such, bedrock channels are governed by two order principles. As a consequence, the recognition of a steady state with respect to one of them does not necessarily imply an overall steady state. For further discussion of the bedrock channel evolution towards a steady state, expressions for adjustment timescales are sought. For this, a mechanistic model for lateral erosion of bedrock channels is developed, which allows to obtain analytical solutions for the adjustment timescales for the morphological variables of channel width, channel bed slope and alluvial bed cover. The adjustment timescale to achieve steady cover is of the order of minutes to days, while the adjustment timescales for width and slope are of the order of thousands of years. Thus, cover is adjusted quickly in response to a change in boundary conditions to achieve a graded state. The resulting change in vertical and lateral incision rates triggers a slow adjustment of width and slope, which in turn affects bed cover. As a result of these feedbacks, it can be expected that a bedrock channel is close to a graded state most of the time, even when it is transiently adjusting its bedrock channel morphology.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 4687-4698
Author(s):  
Richard Essery ◽  
Hyungjun Kim ◽  
Libo Wang ◽  
Paul Bartlett ◽  
Aaron Boone ◽  
...  

Abstract. The 30-year simulations of seasonal snow cover in 22 physically based models driven with bias-corrected meteorological reanalyses are examined at four sites with long records of snow observations. Annual snow cover durations differ widely between models, but interannual variations are strongly correlated because of the common driving data. No significant trends are observed in starting dates for seasonal snow cover, but there are significant trends towards snow cover ending earlier at two of the sites in observations and most of the models. A simplified model with just two parameters controlling solar radiation and sensible heat contributions to snowmelt spans the ranges of snow cover durations and trends. This model predicts that sites where snow persists beyond annual peaks in solar radiation and air temperature will experience rapid decreases in snow cover duration with warming as snow begins to melt earlier and at times of year with more energy available for melting.


1991 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 254-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fan Jinghong ◽  
Peng Xianghe

The hardening behavior of materials in nonproportional cyclic process is related to the internal changes of materials, such as dislocation cell for wary slip material and ladder or vein substructures for planar slip material. The multiplicatively separated form of hardening function f, in terms of nonhardening region proposed by Ohno [1], and the measure of nonproportionality A proposed by Banallal and Marquis in 1987 [2], is then explained on this physical foundation. The new contributions of this hardening function are: (a) two parameters (f2 and f3) dependent on A are used to differentiate between the influence of latent hardening realized by a sudden change of loading direction, and hereditary hardening associated with nonproportional loading, (b) a general differential form fi (i = 1,2,3) is proposed, and memorial parameters a1 and a3 are introduced to describe different deformation history effects for wary and planar slip materials, (c) different hardening mechanisms through fi are embedded into thermomechanically constitutive relation. The stress responses of 304 and 316 stainless steels subjected to biaxial nonproportional loadings at room temperature are analyzed and compared with the experimental results obtained by Chaboche [3], Tanaka [4, 5] and Ohno [1].


2016 ◽  
Vol 663 ◽  
pp. 204-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azadeh Fahimi ◽  
Timothy S. Evans ◽  
Jeff Farrow ◽  
David A. Jesson ◽  
Mike J. Mulheron ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 971-988 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franck Lespinas ◽  
Ashu Dastoor ◽  
Vincent Fortin

Abstract This study presents an evaluation of the performance of the dynamically dimensioned search (DDS) algorithm when calibrating the hydrological component of the Visualizing Ecosystems for Land Management Assessments (VELMA) ecohydrological model. Two calibration strategies were tested for the initial parameter values: (1) a ‘high-cost strategy’, where 100 sets of initial parameter values were randomly chosen within the overall parameter space, and (2) a ‘low-cost strategy’, where a unique set of initial parameter values was derived from the available field data. Both strategies were tested for six different values of the maximum number of model evaluations ranging between 100 and 10,000. Results revealed that DDS is able to converge rapidly to a good parameter calibration solution of the VELMA hydrological component regardless of the parameter initialization strategy used. The accuracy and convergence efficiency of the DDS algorithm were, however, slightly better for the low-cost strategy. This study suggests that initializing the parameter values of complex physically based models using information on the watershed characteristics can increase the efficiency of the automatic calibration procedures.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 13217-13256 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Formetta ◽  
G. Capparelli ◽  
P. Versace

Abstract. Rainfall induced shallow landslides cause loss of life and significant damages involving private and public properties, transportation system, etc. Prediction of shallow landslides susceptible locations is a complex task that involves many disciplines: hydrology, geotechnical science, geomorphology, and statistics. Usually to accomplish this task two main approaches are used: statistical or physically based model. Reliable models' applications involve: automatic parameters calibration, objective quantification of the quality of susceptibility maps, model sensitivity analysis. This paper presents a methodology to systemically and objectively calibrate, verify and compare different models and different models performances indicators in order to individuate and eventually select the models whose behaviors are more reliable for a certain case study. The procedure was implemented in package of models for landslide susceptibility analysis and integrated in the NewAge-JGrass hydrological model. The package includes three simplified physically based models for landslides susceptibility analysis (M1, M2, and M3) and a component for models verifications. It computes eight goodness of fit indices by comparing pixel-by-pixel model results and measurements data. Moreover, the package integration in NewAge-JGrass allows the use of other components such as geographic information system tools to manage inputs-output processes, and automatic calibration algorithms to estimate model parameters. The system was applied for a case study in Calabria (Italy) along the Salerno-Reggio Calabria highway, between Cosenza and Altilia municipality. The analysis provided that among all the optimized indices and all the three models, the optimization of the index distance to perfect classification in the receiver operating characteristic plane (D2PC) coupled with model M3 is the best modeling solution for our test case.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Moussa ◽  
Jean-Paul Lhomme

Abstract. The Budyko functions relate the evaporation ratio E / P (E is evaporation and P precipitation) to the aridity index Φ = Ep / P (Ep is potential evaporation) and are valid on long timescales under steady state conditions. A new formulation physically based (noted ML) is proposed to extend the Budyko framework under non-steady state conditions taking into account the change in soil water storage S. The ML formulation introduces an additional parameter S* = S / Ep and can be applied with all classical Budyko functions. In the standard Budyko space (Ep / P, E / P), and for the particular case where the Fu-Zhang equation is used as a Budyko function, the ML formulation yields similar results to the analytical solution of Greve et al. (2016), and a simple relationship can be established between their respective parameters. Then, the ML formulation is extended to the space [(Ep / (P + S), E / (P + S)] and compared to the formulations of Chen et al. (2013) and Du et al. (2016). We show that the ML and Greve et al. formulations have similar upper feasible domain but their lower feasible domain is different from those of Chen et al. (2103) and Du et al. (2016). Moreover, the domain of variation of Ep / (P + S) differs: it is bounded by an upper limit 1 / S* in the ML formulation, while it is bounded with a lower limit in Chen et al.'s and Du et al.'s formulations.


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