Scaling and Universality in River Flow Dynamics

Abstract: We investigate flow dynamics in rivers characterized by basin areas and daily mean discharge spanning different orders of magnitude. We show that the delayed increments evaluated at time scales ranging from days to months can be opportunely rescaled to the same non-Gaussian probability density function. Such a scaling breaks up above a certain critical horizon, where a behavior typical of thermodynamic systems at the critical point emerges. We finally show that both the scaling behavior and the break up of the scaling are universal features of river flow dynamics.