Drainage organization on the newly emerged Dead Sea bed, Israel

The study demonstrates the spatial variability of runoff allocation from prograding fans to the emerging areas and the variable drainage responses. Three distinct environments were revealed on the emerged areas from the coast to the land: deeply incised channels which are the main transmitters of the base-level effect headward; dendritic coalescing systems that are the reversal of the diverging channel system on alluvial fans; and areas with unconfined sheet flowouts, which are detached from base-level control. The threshold gradient of erosion on the emerged areas is ∼3°. Headward erosion was uncoupled with the lake level drop, i.e. the rate of headward entrenchment increased with time, despite an almost constant base-level fall.