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. A full comprehension of its dynamic leads to a better understanding of the system's behaviour. 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 correlation dimension, positive maximum Lyapunov exponents, and recurrence quantification analysis. The sample entropy analysis shows that the system resulted unpredictable beyond a temporal threshold, and with an intermediate hydrological complexity, while Hurst exponent characterised it as persistent and with sensitive dependence on initial conditions. In a general overview, all the evidence obtained indicates that the Paraná River's behaviour is at the edge of chaos. A latitudinal gradient of decreasing chaoticity was observed as the floodplain extent increased, 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 for understanding the hydrological behaviour of floodplain rivers and the most appropriate methods to understand their complexity.