Fractal River Basins Chance and Self-Organization

This book considers river basins and drainage networks in the light of their scaling and multi-scaling properties, and the dynamics responsible for their development. The hydrology of river basins, and prediction of their growth, demands knowledge of a range of temporal and spatial scales. The core of Fractal River Basins is the search for the hidden order of these temporal and spatial variabilities in river basins, despite variations in size, climate and geology. The commonality of branching networks to other natural phenomena will make this book applicable to a wide range of disciplines. Hydrologists and geomorphologists will find that this book opens up the important topic of the fractal structure of networks at an accessible level. Mathematicians and physicists will appreciate the application of the theory to this aspect of the earth sciences. Comprehensive, well illustrated and with many real-world examples Fractal River Basins, will be useful to researchers and students alike.