Self-organized fractal river networks
- 8 February 1993
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 70 (6) , 822-825
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.70.822
Abstract
Optimal channel networks (OCN’s) obtained by minimizing the local and global rates of energy expenditure evolve automatically from arbitrary initial conditions to network configurations exhibiting fractal and multifractal statistics indistinguishable from those observed in nature. It is suggested that OCN’s are spatial models of self-organized criticality and that natural fractal structures like river networks may arise as a joint consequence of optimality and randomness.Keywords
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