Chaos arising from the hydrological behaviour of a floodplain river
during the last century
Abstract
The hydrological regime is the main factor governing the functioning of
floodplain rivers. An understanding of its dynamic leads to a better
idea of the system behaviour for which proper methods must be used. We
analysed the daily water level of the Paraná River during the last
century at three-gauge stations using linear and non-linear tools to
characterise the hydrological dynamic and to analyse to what extent
chaotic behaviour prevails. The three water level time series were
characterised as non-linear and non-stationary by power spectrum,
autocorrelation function, and surrogate test analyses. A strange
attractor was developed when the phase space was reconstructed, having a
low dimensional chaos, supported by the correlation dimension, the
positive maximum Lyapunov exponents, and the recurrence quantification
analysis. In line with this, the system resulted unpredictable with a
threshold by sample entropy, and with an intermediate hydrological
complexity, while Hurst exponent characterised the system as persistent
and with sensitive dependence on initial conditions. In a general
overview, all the evidence obtained indicated that the Paraná River
behaviour is at the edge of chaos. A latitudinal gradient of decreasing
chaoticity was observed as the floodplain extent increases, whereas
complexity was highest at the intermediate river station due to the
inflow of tributaries with different hydrology. This paper attempts to
offer some additional insights into the understanding of hydrological
behaviour of floodplain rivers and proper methods to catch their
complexity.