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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 78 » Issue 23
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 4522–4525 (1997)

Sculpting of a Fractal River Basin

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Jayanth R. Banavar1, Francesca Colaiori2, Allesandro Flammini2, Achille Giacometti3, Amos Maritan2,4, 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

Received 9 October 1996; published in the issue dated 9 June 1997

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.

© 1997 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.78.4522
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.78.4522
PACS:
92.40.Fb, 64.60.Ak
 
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