Landscape evolution models: A review of their fundamental equations

This paper reviews the main physical laws proposed in landscape evolution models (LEMs). It discusses first the main partial differential equations involved in these models and their variants. These equations govern water runoff, stream incision, regolith-bedrock interaction, hillslope evolution, and sedimentation. A synthesis of existing LEMs is proposed. It proposes three models with growing complexity and with a growing number of components: two-equation models with only two components, governing water and bedrock evolution; three-equation models with three components where water, bedrock, and sediment interact; and finally models with four equations and four interacting components, namely water, bedrock, suspended sediment, and regolith. This analysis is not a mere compilation of existing LEMs. It attempts at giving the simplest and most general physically consistent set of equations, coping with all requirements stated in LEMs and LEM software. Three issues are in particular addressed and hopefully resolved. The first one is a correct formulation of the water transport equation down slopes. A general formulation for this equation is proposed, coping not only with the simplest form computing the drainage area but also with a sound energy dissipation argument associated with the Saint-Venant shallow water equations. The second issue arises from the coexistence of two competing modes, namely the detachment-limited erosion mode on hillslopes, and the transport-limited sediment transport on river beds. The third issue (linked to the second) is the fact that no conservation law is available for material in these two modes. A simple solution proposed to resolve these issues is the introduction, as suggested by several authors, of an additional variable for suspended sediment load in water. With only three variables and three equations, the above-mentioned contradictions seem to be eliminated. Several numerical experiments on real digital elevation models (DEMs) illustrate the discussion and show results of landscape evolution with the proposed synthetic models. © 2014.