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Structural characteristics of river networks and their relations to basin factors in the Yangtze and Yellow River basins

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Abstract

The integration of rivers and basins highly implies the possible existence of certain relationships between hierarchical characteristics of river networks and primary basin factors. Here we investigated river networks in two large basins, the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, characterized with basic factors such as annual precipitation, slope, soil erodibility and vegetation. Hierarchical analysis demonstrated a fair self-similarity of river networks at the stream-order 1–5 in both rivers, described by the structural parameters including bifurcation ratio, side-branching ratio, drainage density, and length of headwater-river. Besides precipitation, basin slope was essential in shaping river networks in both basins, showing a significant positive correlation (R2=0.39–0.85) to bifurcation ratio, side-branching ratio, and drainage density. Given the same basin slope (5°–15°), the higher soil erodibility and sparse vegetation would promote greater side-branching ratio and drainage density in the Yellow River, which were estimated 11.97 % and 63.70 % larger, respectively than those in the Yangtze River. This study highlights the importance to formulate basin-specific strategies for water and soil conservation in terms of different structures of river networks.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    XiaBin Chen, YiChu Wang & JinRen Ni

  2. Beijing Innovation Center for Engineering Science and Advanced Technology (BIC-ESAT), Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    YiChu Wang

Authors
  1. XiaBin Chen
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  2. YiChu Wang
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  3. JinRen Ni
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to YiChu Wang.

Additional information

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51721006).

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Chen, X., Wang, Y. & Ni, J. Structural characteristics of river networks and their relations to basin factors in the Yangtze and Yellow River basins. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 62, 1885–1895 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-019-9531-0

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