The dynamic cellular automata landscape evolution modelling platform CDP

The CAESAR-DESC Platform (CDP) acts as a base for high-resolution modelling of environmental sensitivity over daily to centennial timescales. The Dynamic Environmental Sensitivity to Change (DESC) project couples cellular automata modelling from various backgrounds to generate the CDP; a geomorphological simulator that allows a variety of Earth system interactions can be explored. A derived version of the well established CAESAR model, CAESAR-Lisflood, is used as the platform kernel. The two dimensional modular design allows great versatility in the range of simulated spatio-temporal scales to which it can be applied. CAESAR has been used to investigate a variety of sediment transport, erosional and depositional processes under differing climatic and land-use scenarios in river reaches and catchments around the world. The recent addition of Lisflood to the code has improved river flow representation within the model by incorporating momentum. Non-Lisflood controlled surface hydrology is replaced with a new distributed model (SLiM), and an unconfined cellular automaton groundwater model. Surfacesubsurface water exchanges within the CDP are coupled by recharge to groundwater and groundwater discharge to rivers. To deal with the complex energy and sediment fluxes that occur during a debris flow a modified version of the SCIDDICA model, originally developed to simulate flow-like landslides, has been incorporated into the CDP. As the surface hydrology drives the processes within the platform, CDP facilitates the analysis of climate change influences on a range of environmental processes. The dynamic application of climate factors also opens up the possibility of including a decadal-scale evolving vegetation within the model, which could be used to improve both the partitioning of water between the surface processes and the adhesion properties of vegetation-covered sediment with time.