Experimental evidence for hillslope control of landscape scale

Abstract

Landscape evolution in a sandbox The long-term response of hills and valleys to changes in climate depends on a variety of physical factors. Sweeney et al. performed tabletop erosion experiments as a function of rainfall and uplift: variables that are impossible to precisely control in nature (see the Perspective by McCoy). Ridge and valley spacing are set by the balance of sediment moving down hillslopes or being washed out of valleys by rivers. Landscapes therefore evolve as a response to climate change altering erosion rates. Science , this issue p. 51 ; see also p. 32