Downstream patterns of suspended sediment transport in a High Arctic river influenced by permafrost disturbance and recent climate change

Favaro, Elena A.; Lamoureux, Scott F.

doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2015.06.038

Cited by 24 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…While channelization progress and runoff increase were very important in 2015, sediment was accessed already during lower flows in 2016. Discharge suspended sediment hysteresis is observed at other sites during the nival period showing both, clockwise and anti-clockwise patterns (Chikita et al 2012;Favaro and Lamoureux 2015). During rainfall, the observed behaviour is predominantly clockwise (Braun et al 2000;Forbes and Lamoureux 2005).…”

Section: Rainfall Response and Flow Pathwaysmentioning

confidence: 81%

Summer rainfall dissolved organic carbon, solute, and sediment fluxes in a small Arctic coastal catchment on Herschel Island (Yukon Territory, Canada)

et al. 2018

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Coastal ecosystems in the Arctic are affected by climate change. As summer rainfall frequency and intensity are projected to increase in the future, more organic matter, nutrients and sediment could be mobilized and transported into the coastal nearshore zones. However, knowledge of current processes and future changes is limited. We investigated streamflow dynamics and the impacts of summer rainfall on lateral fluxes in a small coastal catchment on Herschel Island in the western Canadian Arctic. For the summer monitoring periods of 2014-2016, mean dissolved organic matter flux over 17 days amounted to 82.7 ± 30.7 kg km −2 and mean total dissolved solids flux to 5252 ± 1224 kg km −2 . Flux of suspended sediment was 7245 kg km −2 in 2015, and 369 kg km −2 in 2016. We found that 2.0% of suspended sediment was composed of particulate organic carbon. Data and hysteresis analysis suggest a limited supply of sediments; their interannual variability is most likely caused by short-lived localized disturbances. In contrast, our results imply that dissolved organic carbon is widely available throughout the catchment and exhibits positive linear relationship with runoff. We hypothesize that increased projected rainfall in the future will result in a similar increase of dissolved organic carbon fluxes.Key words: permafrost, hydrology, lateral fluxes, hysteresis, climate change.Résumé : Les écosystèmes côtiers dans l'Arctique sont touchés par le changement climatique. Comme la fréquence et l'intensité des pluies d'été sont censées augmenter à l'avenir, plus de matière organique, de substances nutritives et de sédiments pourraient être mobilisés et transportés dans les zones proches des côtes. Par contre, la connaissance quant aux processus actuels et quant aux changements futurs est limitée. Nous avons examiné la dynamique de débit d'eau et les impacts des pluies d'été sur les flux latéraux dans un petit

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Section: Rainfall Response and Flow Pathwaysmentioning

confidence: 81%

Summer rainfall dissolved organic carbon, solute, and sediment fluxes in a small Arctic coastal catchment on Herschel Island (Yukon Territory, Canada)

et al. 2018

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“…Suspended sediment is predominant and commonly accounts for approximately 90% of the total yields (Walling and Fang, 2003;Francke et al, 2008;Zhang et al, 2012;Heng and Suetsugi, 2014). Over recent decades, there has been a persistent focus on the spatiotemporal patterns of sediment loads in the global rivers, such as the Amazon River (Meade et al, 1979;Richey et al, 1986), the Danube River (Mladenovic et al, 2013;Tóth and Bódis, 2015), the Yellow River (Fu, 1989;Xu, 2004;Wang et al, 2007a), as well as cold-region rivers (Demildov et al, 1995;Glasser et al, 2004;Ollesch et al, 2006;Singh et al, 2008;O'Farrell et al, 2009;Favaro and Lamoureux, 2015), showing their dependence on factors such as climate change, geomorphologies, land use, and human activity. Over recent decades, there has been a persistent focus on the spatiotemporal patterns of sediment loads in the global rivers, such as the Amazon River (Meade et al, 1979;Richey et al, 1986), the Danube River (Mladenovic et al, 2013;Tóth and Bódis, 2015), the Yellow River (Fu, 1989;Xu, 2004;Wang et al, 2007a), as well as cold-region rivers (Demildov et al, 1995;Glasser et al, 2004;Ollesch et al, 2006;Singh et al, 2008;O'Farrell et al, 2009;Favaro and Lamoureux, 2015), showing their dependence on factors such as climate change, geomorphologies, land use, and human activity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Suspended sediment is important for current erosion rate estimation (Jansson, 2002;Pelletier, 2012;Dean et al, 2016), and plays an important role in the transfer of most of the available nutrients and contaminants (Devesa-Rey et al, 2009). Over recent decades, there has been a persistent focus on the spatiotemporal patterns of sediment loads in the global rivers, such as the Amazon River (Meade et al, 1979;Richey et al, 1986), the Danube River (Mladenovic et al, 2013;Tóth and Bódis, 2015), the Yellow River (Fu, 1989;Xu, 2004;Wang et al, 2007a), as well as cold-region rivers (Demildov et al, 1995;Glasser et al, 2004;Ollesch et al, 2006;Singh et al, 2008;O'Farrell et al, 2009;Favaro and Lamoureux, 2015), showing their dependence on factors such as climate change, geomorphologies, land use, and human activity. The Tibetan Plateau has one of the largest ice masses on the Earth, referred to as the Asian 'ice reservoir' (Qiu, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatiotemporal variations of suspended sediment transport in the upstream and midstream of the Yarlung Tsangpo River (the upper Brahmaputra), China

Shi

Zhang

et al. 2017

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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The Yarlung Tsangpo River, which flows from west to east across the southern part of the Tibetan Plateau, is the longest river on the plateau and an important center for human habitation in Tibet. Suspended sediment in the river can be used as an important proxy for evaluating regional soil erosion and ecological and environmental conditions. However, sediment transport in the river is rarely reported due to data scarcity. Results from this study based on a daily dataset of 3 years from four main stream gauging stations confirmed the existence of great spatiotemporal variability in suspended sediment transport in the Yarlung Tsangpo River, under interactions of monsoon climate and topographical variability. Temporally, sediment transport or deposition mainly occurred during the summer months from July to September, accounting for 79% to 93% of annual gross sediment load. This coincided with the rainy season from June to August that accounted for 51% to 80% of annual gross precipitation and the flood period from July to September that accounted for approximately 60% of annual gross discharge. The highest specific sediment yield of 177.6 t/km2/yr occurred in the upper midstream with the highest erosion intensity. The lower midstream was dominated by deposition, trapping approximately 40% of total sediment input from its upstream area. Sediment load transported to the midstream terminus was 10.43 Mt/yr with a basin average specific sediment yield of 54 t/km2/yr. Comparison with other plateau‐originated rivers like the upper Yellow River, the upper Yangtze River, the upper Indus River, and the Mekong River indicated that sediment contribution from the studied area was very low. The results provided fundamental information for future studies on soil and water conservation and for the river basin management. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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“…This is explained by the increase in discharge, thus the ability to mobilize more material. Disturbances, such as ALDs, act as local sediment sources when they are hydrologically connected to the stream (Favaro & Lamoureux, ). In ICW, we detect a peak in turbidity at Location 7 on 25 July, which is, however, not there anymore during the following rainfall event on 30 July.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Variability of Dissolved Organic Carbon, Solutes, and Suspended Sediment in Disturbed Low Arctic Coastal Watersheds

et al. 2020

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Climate change in the Arctic leads to permafrost degradation and to associated changes in freshwater geochemistry. There is a limited understanding of how disturbances such as active layer detachments or retrogressive thaw slumps impact water quality on a catchment scale. This study investigates how permafrost degradation affects concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), total dissolved solids (TDS), suspended sediment, and stable water isotopes in adjacent Low Arctic watersheds. We incorporated data on disturbance between 1952 and 2015, as well as sporadic runoff and geochemistry data of streams nearby. Our results show that the total disturbed area decreased by 41% between 1952 and 2015, whereas the total number of disturbances increased by 66% in all six catchments. The spatial variability of hydrochemical parameters is linked to catchment properties and not necessarily reflected at the outflow. Degrading ice‐wedge polygons were found to increase DOC concentrations upstream in Ice Creek West, whereas hydrologically connected disturbances were linked to increases in TDS and suspended sediment. Although we found a great spatial variability of hydrochemical concentrations along the paired watershed, there was a linear relationship between catchment size and daily DOC, total dissolved nitrogen, and TDS fluxes for all six streams. Suspended sediment flux on the contrary did not show a clear relationship as one hydrologically connected retrogressive thaw slump impacted the overall flux in one of the streams. Understanding the spatial variability of water quality will help to model the lateral geochemical fluxes from Arctic catchments.

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Downstream patterns of suspended sediment transport in a High Arctic river influenced by permafrost disturbance and recent climate change

Cited by 24 publications

References 36 publications

Summer rainfall dissolved organic carbon, solute, and sediment fluxes in a small Arctic coastal catchment on Herschel Island (Yukon Territory, Canada)

Summer rainfall dissolved organic carbon, solute, and sediment fluxes in a small Arctic coastal catchment on Herschel Island (Yukon Territory, Canada)

Spatiotemporal variations of suspended sediment transport in the upstream and midstream of the Yarlung Tsangpo River (the upper Brahmaputra), China

Spatial Variability of Dissolved Organic Carbon, Solutes, and Suspended Sediment in Disturbed Low Arctic Coastal Watersheds

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