River landscapes and optimal channel networks.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Balister P
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6042144 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
River landscapes and optimal channel networks.
Balister Paul P Balogh József J Bertuzzo Enrico E Bollobás Béla B Caldarelli Guido G Maritan Amos A Mastrandrea Rossana R Morris Robert R Rinaldo Andrea A
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20180611 26
We study tree structures termed optimal channel networks (OCNs) that minimize the total gravitational energy loss in the system, an exact property of steady-state landscape configurations that prove dynamically accessible and strikingly similar to natural forms. Here, we show that every OCN is a so-called natural river tree, in the sense that there exists a height function such that the flow directions are always directed along steepest descent. We also study the natural river trees in an arbitr ...[more]
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