Open AccessTying bulk watershed properties to mountain river channel evolution
Author(s) -
Schultz Colin
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1002/2013eo490010
Subject(s) - watershed , channel (broadcasting) , geology , sediment , tying , hydrology (agriculture) , erosion , range (aeronautics) , earth science , geomorphology , geotechnical engineering , materials science , machine learning , computer science , electrical engineering , composite material , engineering , operating system
Rivers evolve over tens to thousands of years, winding and drifting and branching from single channels to braided, complex flows. Understanding exactly how and why rivers change course is a complex problem that depends on the erosion of the landscape and incorporates a range of variables, from local environmental conditions, such as the precipitation rate, to the topography, water chemistry, and properties of the rocks in the watershed. At smaller scales, channel evolution depends on the physical properties of, and interactions between, individual grains of sediment. Correlating across this entire range of scales is incredibly difficult, but using a set of comparable observations from 83 watersheds in the U.S. Rocky Mountains, Mueller and Pitlick tie climatic, topographic, and geologic features to sediment processes and river evolution.