Articles | Volume 19, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-1387-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
ConcentrationTracker: Landlab components for tracking material concentrations in sediment
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- Final revised paper (published on 13 Feb 2026)
- Preprint (discussion started on 30 Sep 2025)
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor
| : Report abuse
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2445', Sebastien Carretier, 26 Oct 2025
- AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Laurent Roberge, 23 Dec 2025
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2445', Anonymous Referee #2, 29 Oct 2025
- AC1: 'Reply on RC2', Laurent Roberge, 23 Dec 2025
Peer review completion
AR – Author's response | RR – Referee report | ED – Editor decision | EF – Editorial file upload
AR by Laurent Roberge on behalf of the Authors (13 Jan 2026)
Author's response
Author's tracked changes
Manuscript
ED: Publish as is (26 Jan 2026) by Jeffrey Neal
AR by Laurent Roberge on behalf of the Authors (02 Feb 2026)
The manuscript by Roberge et al. presents a new implementation in Landlab that allows the concentration of a tracer in moving sediments to be traced. This development is exciting, and I fully share the initial motivation behind this study. We do indeed need this type of model to link field measurements of provenance, for example, with the corresponding landscape evolution.
The implementation of the model is clearly presented, and all the equations needed to understand and reproduce this implementation are provided. The examples are illustrative and give a good idea of the potential applications of this model. I particularly like the example of the ‘diffusion’ of colour bands in the landscape, which can correspond to different types of rock. This example could also illustrate another application of the model that does not seem to have been highlighted, namely the study of erosion laws. The link between the dispersion of a tracer and different erosion laws in a specific case could help to justify or calibrate these laws, which remain uncertain in landscape evolution models.
That said, I think there is a simple experiment missing that would demonstrate the validity of the model, which I proposed in my 2016 paper: placing tracers on a pixel at the top of an inclined plane with a constant slope and only diffusion (and no uplift). In this case, we have a simple analytical solution that links the evolution of the spatial standard deviation of the concentration with the diffusion coefficient and time (Einstein's formula). By comparing the theoretical predictions with the Landlab results, you could show that the model gives consistent results, and perhaps independent of the model's time step and space step. It would be useful to discuss the dependence of the new module on these two parameters.
Specific comments
Line 27 «few LEMs account for the storage, fate, and transport of other sediment properties” : which one ?
Line 29-30 I agree, this was my motivation for the grain tracers in Cidre in the 2016 paper.
Line 205 In the equation how Cxpi^t+1 is known ? and in the line bellow it is written that the “remaining unknown is 𝐶𝑋𝑠𝑡+1 on both sides of the equation” but I do not see it. Is there a tipo?
Line 250. Could you explain just a bit more how to obtain this equation?