This data publication supports the manuscript “Controls on Valley-Floor Width in the Western Andes” by Tofelde et al. (2026). The aim of the associated study is to quantify and compare the relative influence of four key factors—river discharge, tectonic uplift, bedrock strength, and lateral sediment supply from adja-cent hillslopes—on the width of valley floors.
Valley-floor width was systematically measured at more than 126,000 locations across 84 catch-ments spanning the western Andes between 5°S and 40°S. To represent the four hypothesized controls, eleven proxy variables were developed and analyzed (see Table 1 in the main manuscript). Valley-floor width was quantified using the approach of Clubb et al. (2022) implemented in the topography analysis software LSDTopoTools (Mudd et al., 2023). River steepness index (Wobus et al., 2006), a proxy for tectonic uplift, was also calculated in LSDTopoTools. All remaining proxies were quantified using the topography analysis software TopoToolbox (Schwanghart & Kuhn, 2010; Schwanghart & Scherler, 2014) implemented in Matlab with the script Valley_floor_analysis.m pro-vided here. This script reproduces the datasets used in the study and allows to apply the approach to new locations.
The DFG Priority Program 1803 “EarthShape” (www.earthshape.net) investigates Earth surface shaping by biota. As part of this project, we present Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data of land surface areas for the four core research sites of the project. The research sites are located along a latitudinal gradient between ~26 °S and ~38 °S in the Chilean Coastal Cordillera. From north to south, the names of these sites are: National Park Pan de Azúcar; Private Reserve Santa Gracia; National Park La Campana; and National Park Nahuelbuta.
The three datasets contain raw 3D point cloud data captured from an airborne LiDAR system, and the following derivative products: a) digital terrain models (DTM, sometimes also referred to as DEM [digital elevation model]) which are (2.5D) raster datasets created by rendering only the LiDAR returns which are assumed to be ground/bare-earth returns and b) digital surface models (DSM) which are also 2.5D raster datasets produced by rendering all the returns from the top of the Earth’s surface, including all objects and structures (e.g. buildings and vegetation).
The LiDAR data were acquired in 2008 (southernmost Nahuelbuta [NAB] catchment), 2016 (central La Campana [LC] catchment) and 2020 (central Santa Gracia [SGA] catchment). Except for Nahuelbuta (data already was available from the data provider from a previous project), the flights were carried out as part of the "EarthShape" project. The LiDAR raw data (point cloud/ *.las files) were compressed, merged (as *.laz files) and projected using UTM 19 S (UTM 18 S for the southernmost Nahuelbuta catchment, respectively) and WGS84 as coordinate reference system.
A complementary fourth dataset for the northernmost site in the National Park Pan de Azúcar, derived from Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) flights and Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry, is expected to be obtained during the first half of 2022 and will be added to the above data set.