Analysis of runoff aggregation structure and energy expenditure pattern for Choyang creek basin on the basis of power law distribution

The main purpose of this study is to analyze runoff aggregation structure and energy expenditure pattern of Choyang creek basin within the framework of power law distribution. To this end geomorphologic factors of every point in the basin of interest, which define tractive force and stream power as well as drainage area, are extracted based on GIS, and their complementary cumulative distributions are graphically analyzed through fitting them to power law distribution. The results indicate that three distinct behavioral regimes are observed from the complementary cumulative distributions of three geomorphogic factors. Based on the parameter estimation of power law distribution by maximum likelihood drainage area and stream power can be judged as scale invariance factor without finite scale while tractive force as scale dependence factor with finite scale. Furthermore, it is judged that tractive force would not follow power law distribution because it shows limited complex system behaviors only within the small extent of scale. The exponent of power law distribution for drainage area obtained in this study by maximum likelihood is larger than the previous researches due to the difference of parameter estimation methodologies. And the exponent for stream power is smaller than the previous researches due to the scaling property of channel slope for the basin of interest.