Sculpting of a Fractal River Basin

Jayanth R. Banavar; Francesca Colaiori; Allesandro Flammini; Achille Giacometti; Amos Maritan; Andrea Rinaldo

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.78.4522

Sculpting of a Fractal River Basin

Jayanth R. Banavar, Francesca Colaiori, Allesandro Flammini, Achille Giacometti, Amos Maritan, and Andrea Rinaldo

Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 4522 – Published 9 June 1997

Abstract

The principle of reparametrization invariance is used to derive a dynamical equation for the erosion of the landscape of the drainage basin of river networks. The stationary solutions of the equation are found to have scaling behavior that is consistent with observational data. Our analytic prediction of the main stream profile is confirmed by numerical results and is amenable to direct observational verification.

Received 9 October 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.78.4522

Authors & Affiliations

Jayanth R. Banavar¹, Francesca Colaiori², Allesandro Flammini², Achille Giacometti³, Amos Maritan^2,4, and Andrea Rinaldo⁵

¹Department of Physics and Center for Materials Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, 104 Davey Laboratory, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802
²Istituto Nazionale di Fisica della Materia, International School for Advanced Studies, I-34014 Grignano di Trieste and sezione INFN di Trieste, Italy
³Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Università di Venezia, I-30124 Venezia, Italy
⁴Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, sezione di Trieste, Italy
⁵Istituto di Idraulica “G. Poleni,” Università di Padova, I-35131 Padova, Italy