Abstract
AbstractThe Ebro catchment includes a continental foreland basin that underwent an endorheic–exorheic transition. Morphometric studies, including hypsometric curves, hypsometric integrals, asymmetry factor, mountain front sinuosity, normalised stream-length gradient, and normalised concavity indices for the Ebro River and 32 of its tributaries, show the signals of transient response to this major drainage change. The Ebro River, its upper catchment tributaries, and the Pyrenean tributaries have concave-up longitudinal profiles, concave hypsometric curves, and low hypsometric integrals, parameters typical of deeply dissected basins. This suggests a mature stage of development, controlled by the shift of the base level to the Mediterranean Sea. Iberian Range tributaries display low concavity profiles with numerous knickpoints and high values of hypsometric integral, indicating a transient state as a response to tectonic uplift, ratified by the values of mountain front sinuosity surrounding the basin.
Highlights
The evolution of continental basins often includes a phase of internal drainage resulting in the development of an endorheic lacustrine regime, which later becomes exorheic by draining to the coastal areas or to another continental area downstream (Mather, 2000; Stokes et al, 2002)
We investigated the hypsometry of the Ebro catchment and its subcatchments by calculating the hypsometric curve (HC) and the hypsometric integral (HI) (Table 1, Fig. 2)
The effort devoted to investigating the impacts on the fluvial landscape, at catchment scale, of the exorheic transition experienced by the Ebro catchment is relatively scarce
Summary
The evolution of continental basins often includes a phase of internal drainage resulting in the development of an endorheic lacustrine regime, which later becomes exorheic by draining to the coastal areas or to another continental area downstream (Mather, 2000; Stokes et al, 2002). Rivers, which have a tendency to generate concave-up longitudinal profiles (Hack, 1973; Sinha and Parker, 1996; Demoulin, 1998), have to readjust their profiles to the new exorheic base level, usually by generating knickpoints or knickzones if the base-level fall takes place rapidly (e.g., Bowman et al, 2007; Prince et al., 2011; Antón et al, 2014) Those knickpoints/knickzones migrate upstream, triggering a wave of incision that can expose the previous endorheic sedimentary fill and potentially rejuvenate and/or rearrange the drainage network (Crosby and Whipple, 2005). Fluvial dynamics are again characterised by erosive processes, leaving the previously deposited sediments at a higher height, generating fluvial terraces (Bridgland and Westaway, 2008; Geach et al, 2015; Cordier et al, 2017)
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