Valleys produced by glaciers are morphologically distinct from those created by rivers, but these differences are surprisingly difficult to automatically detect using digital topographic data. This contribution tests whether glacial and fluvial valleys can be discriminated using scaling between watershed area and valley width. We present a method for estimating valley width at each point in digital topographic data by determining the cross‐valley scale at which normalized principal curvature is minimized. We assess how well this approach measures valley width in synthetic valleys using artificial valley cross sections with random topographic noise. These width estimates are validated against manual measurements in glacial and fluvial valleys. Finally, we assess the sensitivity of these quantities to the pixel dimension of the input data to determine the detection limits of the method for moderate (20 m) and coarse‐resolution (>30 m) digital elevation models (DEMs). We find that valley widths are underpredicted by a factor of 2.5 to 4; nonetheless, they are well correlated with both synthetically prescribed and empirically measured widths and so can be used as reliable measures of valley width when scaled to account for this underprediction. We find clear distinctions between valley width‐catchment area relationships in glacial and nonglacial valleys, indicating that this methodology might be deployed globally to characterize the distribution and extent of glacial landscapes across Earth. In addition, this technique could be used to determine anomalous downstream width changes related to processes such as valley aggradation.

中文翻译：

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基于曲率的山谷宽度测量方法，应用于冰川和河流景观

冰川形成的山谷在形态上与河流形成的山谷不同，但是令人惊讶的是，使用数字地形数据很难自动检测出这些差异。该贡献测试了是否可以使用分水岭面积和谷宽之间的比例来区分冰川河谷和河流河谷。我们提出了一种通过确定标准化主曲率最小的跨谷尺度来估计数字地形数据中每个点谷宽的方法。我们使用具有随机地形噪声的人工谷横截面来评估这种方法在合成谷中测量谷宽的效果。这些宽度估计值是通过对冰河和河谷中的人工测量进行验证的。最后，我们评估了这些数量对输入数据像素尺寸的敏感性，以确定中度（20 m）和粗分辨率（> 30 m）数字高程模型（DEM）方法的检测极限。我们发现谷底宽度被低估了2.5到4。尽管如此，它们与综合规定的宽度和经验测得的宽度都具有良好的相关性，因此在进行缩放以解决这一预测不足时，可以用作谷宽的可靠度量。我们发现冰川和非冰川谷的谷宽与集水面积之间的关系存在明显区别，这表明该方法可能会在全球范围内推广使用，以表征整个地球上冰川景观的分布和范围。此外，