Just published in Catena: Store and Pour: Evolution of Flow Systems in Landscapes (vol. 216, paper number 106357). The abstract is below, and the article is attached.

This continues my effort to figure out why certain "optimal" configurations appear recurrently in nature, despite the fact that most environmental entities have no intentionality, and that these must be emergent phenomena--accidental agency, if you will. This recognizes some similarities in the development of flow systems in terms of dual-porosity in soil and groundwater (preferential flow patterns and matrix), dendritic fluvial channel networks, and other hydrological (and related geomorphological and ecological) phenomena. It's really pretty simple, as reflected in the figure below (Fig. 4 from the published paper).