ABSTRACT. Long-term simulations (3000 yr) of an idealized
basin using different tidal ranges (1, 2 and 3 m) and grain
sizes (120, 480 and 960 μm) have been performed in order
to cover a range of hydrodynamic and sedimentary conditions.
Two different cell sizes (50 and 100 m) have been used
to study the impact of cell size on tidal network development.
The probability distributions of the drainage area and
the drainage volume have been computed for every simulation
(during an ebb and a flood phase). Power law distributions
are observed in drainage area and drainage volume
distribution. As an objective estimation of the exponent of a
power law is an open issue, different approaches (linear binning,
normalized logarithmic binning, cumulative distribution
function and maximum likelihood) proposed by White
et al. (2008) to estimate the exponent have been used to carry
out a sensitivity analysis. Our findings indicate that although
all methods results in high and significant correlation coefficients,
more work is needed to develop a universal, objective
estimation of the exponent