Abstract

Bedrock channels incised below the surrounding slopes and uplands exert an important control on upstream transmission of base level fall, the stability of adjacent hill slopes, and the conveyance of sediment from headwaters to lower portions of drainage basins. Because channels incised into bedrock both reflect and drive landscape-scale incision, research has increasingly focused on these portions of drainage networks. This talk reviews field research, lab experiments, and numerical simulations of bedrock channel process and form at micro (10⁰-10¹ m), meso (10¹-10³ m), and macro (10³-10⁶ km) scales, focusing on key challenges of (i) integrating models of various erosive processes, (ii) developing spatially explicit erosion-rate laws at the macro scale, (iii) exploring temporal partitioning of erosion at meso and macro scales, and (iv) applying our understanding to management of bedrock channels.