Symmetric rearrangement of groundwater-fed streams

Abstract

Streams shape landscapes through headward growth and lateral migration. When these streams are primarily fed by groundwater, recent work suggests that their tips advance to maximize the symmetry of the local Laplacian field associated with groundwater flow. We explore the extent to which such forcing is responsible for the lateral migration of streams by studying two features of groundwater-fed streams in Bristol, Florida: their confluence angle near junctions and their curvature. First, we find that, while streams asymptotically form a 72° angle near their tips, they simultaneously exhibit a wide 120° confluence angle within approximately 10 m of their junctions. We show that this wide angle maximizes the symmetry of the groundwater field near the junction. Second, we argue that streams migrate laterally within valleys and present a new spectral analysis method to relate planform curvature to the surrounding groundwater field. Our results suggest that streams migrate laterally in response to fluxes from the surrounding groundwater table, providing evidence of a new mechanism that complements Laplacian growth at their tips.