Week 3 ( Feb 12 ) : Erosion and Sediment Transport

Sweeney, K.E., Roering, J.J., Ellis, C., 2015. Experimental evidence for hillslope control of landscape scale. Science 349, 51–53. This study derived laboratory experiments to test the landscape evolution theory, which states that climate sets the scale of landscape dissection through the competition between diffusive and advective processes. Convex hillslopes are produced through diffusive processes (e.g., creep, rain splash, biotic disturbance) and concave valleys are formed from advective processes, where sediment is transported by debris flow or flowing water. Specifically, these lab experiments examined whether the competition between hillslope transport and valley incision determines the spatial scale of landscapes. Lab experiments provide an important intermediate between numerical modeling and field tests. The article utilizes two main equations, derived from the principle of conservation of mass: