On the sensitivity of tidal network characterization to power law estimation

Abstract. Long-term simulations (3000 yr) of an idealized basin using different tidal ranges (1, 2 and 3 m) and grain sizes (120, 480 and 960 μm) have been performed in order to cover a range of hydrodynamic and sedimentary conditions. Two different cell sizes (50 and 100 m) have been used to study the impact of cell size on tidal network development. The probability distributions of the drainage area and the drainage volume have been computed for every simulation (during an ebb and a flood phase). Power law distributions are observed in drainage area and drainage volume distribution. As an objective estimation of the exponent of a power law is an open issue, different approaches (linear binning, normalized logarithmic binning, cumulative distribution function and maximum likelihood) proposed by White et al. (2008) to estimate the exponent have been used to carry out a sensitivity analysis. Our findings indicate that although all methods results in high and significant correlation coefficients, more work is needed to develop a universal, objective estimation of the exponent.