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Dispersal scaling from the world's rivers
Author(s) -
Warrick Jonathan A.,
Fong Derek A.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2003gl019114
Subject(s) - drainage basin , watershed , river mouth , hydrology (agriculture) , environmental science , biological dispersal , magnitude (astronomy) , scaling , spatial ecology , biogeochemical cycle , submarine pipeline , tributary , structural basin , geology , physical geography , oceanography , geography , sediment , ecology , geomorphology , cartography , physics , geotechnical engineering , machine learning , astronomy , computer science , biology , population , demography , geometry , mathematics , sociology
Although rivers provide important biogeochemical inputs to oceans, there are currently no descriptive or predictive relationships of the spatial scales of these river influences. Our combined satellite, laboratory, field and modeling results show that the coastal dispersal areas of small, mountainous rivers exhibit remarkable self‐similar scaling relationships over many orders of magnitude. River plume areas scale with source drainage area to a power significantly less than one (average = 0.65), and this power relationship decreases significantly with distance offshore of the river mouth. Observations of plumes from large rivers reveal that this scaling continues over six orders of magnitude of river drainage basin areas. This suggests that the cumulative area of coastal influence for many of the smallest rivers of the world is greater than that of single rivers of equal watershed size.