Multifractal behaviour of river networks

By S. G. D. Bartolo, S. Gabriele, R. Gaudio. 2000

49 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract. A numerical multifractal analysis was performed for five river networks extracted from Calabrian natural basins represented on 1:25000 topographic sheets. The spectrum of generalised fractal dimensions, D(q), and the sequence of mass exponents, τ(q), were obtained using an efficient generalised box-counting algorithm. The multi-fractal spectrum, f(α), was deduced with a Legendre transform. Results show that the nature of the river networks analysed is multifractal, with support dimensions, D(0), ranging between 1.76 and 1.89. The importance of the specific number of digitised points is underlined, in order to accurately define, the geometry of river networks through a direct generalised box-counting measure that is not influenced by their topology. The algorithm was also applied to a square portion of the Trionto river network to investigate border effects. Results confirm the multifractal behaviour, but with D(0) = 2. Finally, some open mathematical problems related to the assessment of the box-counting dimension are discussed. Keywords: River networks; measures; multifractal spectrum

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6974852fdcf86cce13967a2b250c9b6931115d08

Citations in the corpus

• Comparison of gliding box and box-counting methods in river network analysis (2007, unknown): “Beside river network geometry (De Bartolo et al., 2000), other important hydrological variables, such as catchments areas, slopes (Rodriguez-Iturbe et al., 1994), topography (Lavalĺee et al., 1993; Veneziano and Niemann, 2000a, b), network optimization (Rigon et al., 1993), Rinaldo and…”