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Forests seem to represent low-erosion systems, according to most, but not all, studies of suspended-sediment yield. We surmised that this impression reflects an accidental bias in the selection of monitoring sites towards those with prevailing vertical hydrological flowpaths, rather than a tight causal link between vegetation cover and erosion alone. To evaluate this conjecture, we monitored, over a 2-year period, a 3.3 ha old-growth rainforest catchment prone to frequent and widespread overland flow. We sampled stream flow at two and overland flow at three sites in a nested arrangement on a within-event basis, and monitored the spatial and temporal frequency of overland flow. Suspended-sediment concentrations were modeled with Random Forest and Quantile Regression Forest to be able to estimate the annual yields for the 2 years, which amounted to 1 t ha(-1) and 2 t ha(-1) in a year with below-average and with average precipitation, respectively. These estimates place our monitoring site near the high end of reported suspended-sediment yields and lend credence to the notion that low yields reflect primarily the dominance of vertical flowpaths and not necessarily and exclusively the kind of vegetative cover. Undisturbed forest and surface erosion are certainly no contradiction in terms even in the absence of mass movements.
Saturated hydraulic conductivity (K-s) is an important soil characteristic affecting soil water storage, runoff generation and erosion processes. In some areas where high-intensity rainfall coincides with low K-s values at shallow soil depths, frequent overland flow entails dense drainage networks. Consequently, linear structures such as flowlines alternate with inter-flowline areas. So far, investigations of the spatial variability of K-s mainly relied on isotropic covariance models which are unsuitable to reveal patterns resulting from linear structures. In the present study, we applied two sampling approaches so as to adequately characterize K-s spatial variability in a tropical forest catchment that features a high density of flowlines: A classical nested sampling survey and a purposive sampling strategy adapted to the presence of flowlines. The nested sampling approach revealed the dominance of small-scale variability, which is in line with previous findings. Our purposive sampling, however, detected a strong spatial gradient: surface K-s increased substantially as a function of distance to flowline; 10 m off flowlines, values were similar to the spatial mean of K-s. This deterministic trend can be included as a fixed effect in a linear mixed modeling framework to obtain realistic spatial fields of K-s. In a next step we used probability maps based on those fields and prevailing rainfall intensities to assess the hydrological relevance of the detected pattern. This approach suggests a particularly good agreement between the probability statements of K-s exceedance and observed overland flow occurrence during wet stages of the rainy season.
The Southern Pre-Pyrenees experienced a substantial land-use change over the second half of the 20th century owing to the reduction of agricultural activities towards the formation of a more natural forest landscape. The land-use change over the last 50 years with subsequent effects on water and sediment export was modelled with the process-based, spatially semi-distributed WASA-SED model for the meso-scale Canalda catchment in Catalonia, Spain. It was forwarded that the model yielded plausible results for runoff and sediment yield dynamics without the need of calibration, although the model failed to reproduce the shape of the hydrograph and the total discharge of several individual rainstorm events, hence the simulation capabilities are not yet considered sufficient for decision-making purposes for land management. As there are only a very limited amount of measured data available on sediment budgets with altered land-use and climate change settings, the WASA-SED model was used to obtain qualitative estimates on the effects of past and future change scenarios to derive a baseline for hypothesis building and future discussion on the evolution of sediment budgets in such a dryland setting. Simulating the effects of the past land-use change, the model scenarios resulted in a decrease of up to 75% of the annual sediment yield. whereas modelled runoff remained almost constant over the last 50 years. The relative importance of environmental change was evaluated by comparing the impact on sediment export of land-use change, that are driven by socio-economic factors, with climate change projections for changes in the rainfall regime. The modelling results suggest that a 20% decrease in annual rainfall results in a decrease in runoff and sediment yield, thus an ecosystem stabilisation in regard to sediment export which can only be achieved by a substantial land-use change equivalent to a complete afforestation. At the same time, a 20% increase in rainfall causes a large export of water and sediment resources out of the catchment, equivalent to an intensive agricultural use of 100% of the catchment area. For wet years, the effects of agricultural intensification are more pronounced, so that in this case the intensive land-use change has a significantly larger impact on sediment generation than climate change. The WASA-SED model proved capable in quantifying the impacts of actual and potential environmental change, but the reliability of the simulation results is still circumscribed by considerable parameterisation and model uncertainties.
Suspended sediment transport in a highly erodible catchment : the River Isábena (Southern Pyrenees)
(2009)
Understanding and quantifying sediment load is important in catchments draining highly erodible materials that eventually contribute to siltation of downstream reservoirs. Within this context, the suspended sediment transport and its temporal dynamics have been studied in the River Isabena (445 km(2), south-central Pyrenees, Ebro basin) by means of direct sampling and turbidity recording during a 3-year dry period. The average flood-suspended sediment concentration was 8 g l(-1). with maximum instantaneous values above 350 g l(-1). The high scatter between discharge and suspended sediment concentrations (up to five orders of magnitude) has not permitted the use of rating curve methods to estimate the total load. Interpolation techniques yielded a mean annual sediment load of 184,253 t y(-1) for the study period, with a specific yield of 414 t km(-2) y(-1). This value resembles those reported for small torrents in nearby mountainous environments and is the result of the high connectivity between the badland source areas and stream courses, a fact that maximises sediment conveyance through the catchment. Floods dominated the sediment transport and yield. However, sediment transport was more constant through time than that observed in Mediterranean counterparts; this can be attributed to the role of base flows that entrain fine sediment temporarily stored in the channel and force the river to carry high sediment concentrations (i.e., generally in the order of 0.5 g l(-1)), even under minimum flow conditions.
The results of streamflow trend studies are often characterized by mostly insignificant trends and inexplicable spatial patterns. In our study region, Western Austria, this applies especially for trends of annually averaged runoff. However, analysing the altitudinal aspect, we found that there is a trend gradient from higher-altitude to lower-altitude stations, i.e. a pattern of mostly positive annual trends at higher stations and negative ones at lower stations. At midaltitudes, the trends are mostly insignificant. Here we hypothesize that the streamflow trends are caused by the following two main processes: on the one hand, melting glaciers produce excess runoff at higher-altitude watersheds. On the other hand, rising temperatures potentially alter hydrological conditions in terms of less snowfall, higher infiltration, enhanced evapotranspiration, etc., which in turn results in decreasing streamflow trends at lower-altitude watersheds. However, these patterns are masked at mid-altitudes because the resulting positive and negative trends balance each other. To support these hypotheses, we attempted to attribute the detected trends to specific causes. For this purpose, we analysed trends of filtered daily streamflow data, as the causes for these changes might be restricted to a smaller temporal scale than the annual one. This allowed for the explicit determination of the exact days of year (DOYs) when certain streamflow trends emerge, which were then linked with the corresponding DOYs of the trends and characteristic dates of other observed variables, e.g. the average DOY when temperature crosses the freezing point in spring. Based on these analyses, an empirical statistical model was derived that was able to simulate daily streamflow trends sufficiently well. Analyses of subdaily streamflow changes provided additional insights. Finally, the present study supports many modelling approaches in the literature which found out that the main drivers of alpine streamflow changes are increased glacial melt, earlier snowmelt and lower snow accumulation in wintertime.