The relationship between topographic relief and erosion rate can be used to interrogate dynamic forces which interact to shape the Earth’s surface. Roering et al. (2007) formulated a dimensionless relationship between relief (R*) and erosion rate (E*) which allows comparisons between landscapes of vastly differing forms. Hurst et al. (2013) used this technique to identify topographic uplift and decay along the Dragons Back Pressure Ridge, CA. However, in spite of its utility, it has always been a challenging method to implement. In this chapter we go through the steps required to generate E* R* data using LSDTopoTools from high resolution topography at a range of spatial scales, following Grieve et al. (2015).
Here is a quick overview of how to set up and run the code, if you have done it before:
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Generate a channel head file for the landscape.
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Run the hillslope lenth driver, following the [Extracting Hillslope Lengths] chapter.
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Compile the code with:
make -f E_STAR_R_STAR.make -
Run the program
E_STAR_R_STAR.outusing the path (with trailing slash), the filename prefix, the minimum patch area in pixels, the minimum number of data points per basin and the basin order. -
Analyze the resulting data files using
Plot_ER_Data.py.