Evidence of Self-Organized Criticality in riverbank mass failures: A matter of perspective?

Abstract

A growing body of field, theoretical and numerical modelling studies suggests that predicting river response to even major changes in input variables is difficult. Rivers are seen to adjust rapidly and variably through time and space as well as changing independently of major driving variables. Concepts such as Self-Organized Criticality (SOC) are considered to better reflect the complex interactions and adjustments occurring in systems than traditional approaches of cause and effect. This study tests the hypothesis that riverbank mass failures which occurred both prior to, and during, an extreme flood event in southeast Queensland (SEQ) in 2011 are a manifestation of SOC. Each wet-flow fail..