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<p>Despite the growing interest in studying lakes as complex systems, the principle underlying lake formation and the observed power law size distributions remains unclear, limiting our ability to better understand the complexity of this hydrological system and to address the related challenges of water security and climate change. By introducing the topographic wetness index (TWI) into the percolation theory, we simulated the connectivity of water on the land surface in 14 regions of varying sizes, scales and topographic features. We uncovered that discontinuous percolation transitions are prevalent in the Earth’s topography, with critical TWI thresholds between 0.617 and 0.724, and this criticality extends beyond the critical point with the presence of a Griffiths phase. Natural lake systems were found to develop within the criticality regime, as evidenced by the emergence of the largest lake and the power law distribution of lake sizes. We therefore conjectured that self-organized criticality plays a governing role in the development of lake systems, which is likely driven by the quest for system stability. These results can also contribute to better understanding of the evolutionary mechanisms of other natural complex systems that develop on the Earth’s land surface.</p>

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Self-organized criticality of natural lakes revealed by the percolation model based on topographic wetness index

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年4月1日

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  • Shengjie Hu,
  • Zhenlei Yang,
  • Zipeng Wang,
  • Sergio Andres Galindo Torres,
  • Ling Li

摘要

Despite the growing interest in studying lakes as complex systems, the principle underlying lake formation and the observed power law size distributions remains unclear, limiting our ability to better understand the complexity of this hydrological system and to address the related challenges of water security and climate change. By introducing the topographic wetness index (TWI) into the percolation theory, we simulated the connectivity of water on the land surface in 14 regions of varying sizes, scales and topographic features. We uncovered that discontinuous percolation transitions are prevalent in the Earth’s topography, with critical TWI thresholds between 0.617 and 0.724, and this criticality extends beyond the critical point with the presence of a Griffiths phase. Natural lake systems were found to develop within the criticality regime, as evidenced by the emergence of the largest lake and the power law distribution of lake sizes. We therefore conjectured that self-organized criticality plays a governing role in the development of lake systems, which is likely driven by the quest for system stability. These results can also contribute to better understanding of the evolutionary mechanisms of other natural complex systems that develop on the Earth’s land surface.