From Grain to Floodplain: Hyperscale Models of Braided Rivers

The last decade has witnessed an unprecedented escalation of geospatial technology with fundamental implications for river science and management. Typical datasets of channel morphology have grown from tens of cross-sections, comprising a few hundred survey observations, to airborne lidar surveys incorporating millions of points. As we report here, the prospect of wide-area terrestrial laser scans with tens of billions of observations now looms large, delivering an increase of seven orders of magnitude in information in a decade. Our observational net has closed rapidly; the challenge now is to reap the scientific rewards from this technological dividend.