Low-relief landscape modeling with human activities

Abstract:

Intensively managed landscapes (IMLs) in the Midwestern United States have been shaped by repeated glacial events over geologic time scales followed by rapid human modifications for agriculture and artificial drainage that were overlaid on extremely low gradient stream networks. These landscapes are heavily modified by agriculture, artificial drainage, deforestation, urbanization, and wetland destruction. Channel head extension and periodic dredging for channel straightening not only strongly affected hydrologic and geomorphologic response, but also fundamentally alter the energy consumption in the whole river basin. However, it is unclear how the landscape consumes and responds to the extra energy from human activities. Therefore, we evaluate the present-day dynamics of river network from the perspective of of geomorphic equilibrium, hydrological response, and the rate of energy dissipation. Then, we simulate the landscape evolution to discover the tendency of the system. We find that channel head extension and straightening increases the rate of energy dissipation and pushes the river network further away from equilibrium condition. From our numerical model simulation, extending and maintaining the ditches in the river network can cause large ridge migration, river network redistribution, and enlargement of the drainage basin area. Our research demonstrates how the river basin responds to human activities in glaciated landscape, and how it is likely to behave with artificial modifications on the topography in the future. We attribute the legacy to drainage basin reorganization and theorized that humans can have a lasting impact on the landscape even after active management has ceased.