[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# Watersheds in disordered media

## Details

**Authors** Araújo, Nuno A. M. and Schrenk, K. Julian and Herrmann, Hans J. and Andrade, José S.

**Year** 2015

**Publisher** Frontiers in Physics

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Physics

**Secondary disciplines** Hydrology

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.3389/fphy.2015.00005) 
10.3389/fphy.2015.00005

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To review the geomorphological definition of watersheds, their geometrical and physical properties, and statistical results from model landscapes with long-range correlations.

### How they did it (methods)

Review of watershed definitions and of numerical results on artificial landscapes with long-range correlations, compared with real landscapes.

### What they found (results)

Statistical results from model landscapes with long-range correlations agree in good qualitative and quantitative agreement with real landscapes, linking the watershed concept to the statistical physics of disordered systems.

## Commentary

### In short

A review treating watersheds, the lines dividing water systems that drain to different outlets, as objects of statistical physics, and showing that model landscapes reproduce the properties of real ones.

### Response

The work centers on a boundary between regions: a watershed divides terrain into basins that drain to different outlets, which is a distinction drawn in space. The fit is limited to distinctions. The summary available did not show any claim about nesting, causation or observer dependence, so no further patterns are recorded. It was filed from a summary of the abstract page.

**Patterns it shows** D

Shows the structure is there

**Added** 2026-11-02

**How to cite this** Araújo, Nuno A. M. and Schrenk, K. Julian and Herrmann, Hans J. and Andrade, José S. (2015). Watersheds in disordered media. Frontiers in Physics.