­
Figure 10 . ­Illustration of potentially misleading spatial patterns that arise among channel steepness, rainfall, and erosion rates during transient adjustment to a change in rainfall pattern, particularly when erosion rate and morphometrics are averaged at catchment scale – see section 5.1.2 for detailed discussion. a) Shows time slice at 0.5 Myr into transient adjustment of Case 3 (t2 in Figure 5). For clarity, a subsample of ten data points is shown for each model dataset; connecting dashed line is populated from full model. Thick colored bands (red = trunk, blue = tributaries) show final steady state upstream-averagedksn pattern toward which the modelled catchment is adjusting. Position of trunk knickpoint, defined as upstream extent of quasi-equilibrium adjustment, is shown by red solid line, and zones describing morphological characteristics of tributary catchments are shown across the top axis (compare both with panel c). b) Modelled steady state ksn and trunk erosion rate pattern of hypothetical catchment experiencing a bottom-heavy rainfall gradient and a spatial gradient in uplift rate that matches the catchment-averaged erosion rate pattern recorded by the tributary network in a). c) Shows planform development of localksn , ksn-q , and erosion rates at initial and final steady states, a transient time slice from Case 3, and steady state pattern from (b). Downstream is to the left. Transient time slice and tributaries are the same as in panels (a & b). Note that trunk and tributary profiles are not illustrated to scale (Table 1).