A method to establish a Holocene sediment budget for a 103 ha agricultural catchment representative for the Belgian loess belt is presented. Soil erosion and sediment deposition were determined based on 185 coring locations and a large excavation in the valley bottom. Results were integrated in a GIS and interpolation techniques applied to derive spatial patterns of erosion and sedimentation. Total soil erosion, sediment deposition and sediment export were calculated and the results show that volumes are highly dependent on the interpolation technique used. Sediment delivery ratios between 20% and 42% are derived and are consistent with data reported in previous studies. This clearly shows that the majority of the sediments produced during the Holocene have been stored near their source area and have not been delivered to the downstream rivers. The spatial distribution of soil erosion and sediment deposition within the catchment is strongly dependent on slope gradient and position within the catchment, which suggests that, since human impact began, topography has been the main factor determining long-term soil erosion and sedimentation.

Soil erosion and sediment deposition widely affect landscape development, particularly in erosion-prone areas with loessderived soils. Nevertheless, until now, few attempts were made to quantify soil losses and sediment storage over long (centennial or millennial) timescales. In this study, the Holocene alluvial sediment storage in a small river catchment (52 km 2 ) of the Belgian loess belt is estimated, and a preliminary sediment budget for the catchment is presented.In the valley of the Nethen River (c. 13 km long), a detailed survey of the alluvial sediment archive was conducted. Hand augerings and percussion drillings were made along cross-valley transects at 12 locations in the catchment. AMS 14 C dating of peat samples provided a temporal framework for the interpretation of the cores.Results show that the thickness of Holocene sediment deposits in the Nethen valley is 4 to 6m, which corresponds to a total clastic sediment mass of ∼14 × 10 6 t stored in the valley bottom. Three alluvial units could be distinguished and associated with deposition phases from 9600 to 2900 B.C., 2900 B.C. to A.D. 1000 and A.D. 1000 to present. In contrast to the older sediments (units 1 and 2), deposits from the last 1000 year (unit 3) contain little organic matter. They are seldom intercalated with peat layers, and devoid of tufa. Unit 3 reaches a thickness of c. 2m, thereby representing 50% of the Holocene sediment mass stored in the alluvial plain. The mean sedimentation rate in the alluvial plain for this last phase is ∼26t ha − 1 a − 1 , which is about tenfold larger than the sedimentation rates calculated for the older Holocene sediment units. Sediment supply towards the alluvial plain has therefore increased tremendously since Medieval times.These results are in contrast to dating results obtained for colluvial sediments in a nearby dry valley within the catchment of the Nethen, where soil erosion and sediment deposition started in the early Iron Age and was already substantial during the Roman Age. This means that there is a time lag of about one millennium between the onset of high sedimentation rates in the upstream area and high deposition rates in the alluvial plain. This is probably caused by a change in coupling (sediment connectivity) between the plateau, slopes, and rivers. As soil erosion proceeds, first the dry zero-order valleys in the catchment act as sediment traps, and only after these are filled sediment reaches the floodplains. The preliminary sediment budget for the Nethen catchment illustrates that 50% of the sediment that was eroded during the Holocene was stored in colluvial deposits, which are mainly located on footslopes and in dry valley bottoms. Another 29% of the sediment mass is stored in the alluvial plain.

This study presents a Holocene sediment budget for the Nethen catchment, a typical river catchment (55 km 2 ) in the Belgian loess belt. Soil erosion and hillslope sediment storage are quantified by extrapolating detailed data obtained from soil profile truncation studies in three representative zero-order sub catchments. Floodplain sediment storage is estimated by augerings along several transects across the main river and some of its tributaries. The sediment budget shows that ca. 38% of the soil eroded during the Holocene is redeposited as colluvium on hillslopes and in dry valley bottoms. Another 23% of the eroded sediment is now stored as alluvium in the floodplain. The remaining 39% or 21 × 10 6 Mg is exported from the catchment. Dating of both colluvial and alluvial sediment deposits reveals that sediment dynamics between the hillslopes, the dry valley bottoms and the floodplain behave highly non-linearly. Before~500 BC, sediment delivery from the hillslopes to the river channels was near maximum. However, since the onset of significant agriculture in the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age, increased rates of soil erosion are only reflected in the colluvium, but not in the floodplain, resulting in very low hillslope sediment delivery ratios. From the Medieval period onwards, soil erosion increased even further, mainly as a result of a further increase in agricultural land use, but now also accelerated floodplain sedimentation took place due to an improved slope-channel coupling and the management of floodplains.

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To unravel the evolution of a dry valley in the Belgian loess area soils and sediments along a slope catena were studied in detail. A 67 m long trench was opened from the upper slope to the centre of the valley bottom. The exposed soils and sediments showed evidence of severe soil erosion and other human disturbances that significantly changed the valley topography. The early-Holocene slope gradient was up to 25%, whereas now it is less than 10%. In the thalweg, a remnant of the early-Holocene soil was found underneath colluvial deposits, which were more than 3 m thick. A chronology for the valley evolution was established based on AMS 14C dating of charcoal fragments and optical dating of colluvial sediments. The first sediment deposition occurred in the early Iron Age, with an average sedimentation rate of approximately 3.4 ± 1.3 t/ha per yr. This increased to c. 5.4 ± 2.2 t/ha per yr during the Roman Period and further to 18.0 ± 2.2 t/ha per yr in the Middle Ages. Although sediment accumulation in the valley was substantial, soil-erosion processes were mainly low-magnitude and signs of gullying are absent in the thalweg until the last few centuries.