'Universal' recession curves and their geomorphological interpretation

Biswal, Basudev and Marani, M (2014) 'Universal' recession curves and their geomorphological interpretation. Advances in Water Resources , 65. pp. 34-42. ISSN 0309-1708

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Abstract

The study of recession flows offers fundamental insights into basin hydrological processes and, in particular, into the collective behavior of the governing dominant subsurface flows and properties. We use here an existing geomorphological interpretation of recession dynamics, which links the exponent in the classic recession curve -dQ / dt = kQα to the geometric properties of the time-varying drainage network to study the general properties of recession curves across a wide variety of river basins. In particular, we show how the parameter k depends on the initial soil moisture state of the basin and can be made to explicitly depend on an index discharge, representative of initial sub-subsurface storage. Through this framework we obtain a non-dimensional, event-independent, recession curve. We subsequently quantify the variability of k across different basins on the basis of their geometry, and, by rescaling, collapse curves from different events and basins to obtain a generalized, or 'universal', recession curve. Finally, we analyze the resulting normalized recession curves and explain their universal characteristics, lending further support to the notion that the statistical properties of observed recession curves bear the signature of the geomorphological structure of the networks producing them

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IITH Creators:

IITH Creators	ORCiD
Biswal, Basudev	http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1088-7229

Item Type:

Article

Additional Information:

The authors gratefully acknowledge the CARIPARO foundation for funding the PhD scholarship awarded to BB, and for financial support through the research project ‘Transport phenomena in river basins: theory and hydrologic and geophysical observations’. MM was funded by Duke University, the University of Padova ‘Strategic Research Project’ on ‘Geological and Hydrological Processes: Monitoring, Modelling and Impacts in North-east Italy’, and by the CLIMB European project. We also thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions.

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Active drainage network; Channel network morphology; Power law; Recession curves

Subjects:

Civil Engineering > Soil Structure Interaction

Divisions:

Department of Civil Engineering

Depositing User:

Team Library

Date Deposited:

26 Dec 2014 06:20

Last Modified:

29 Aug 2017 11:40