Influence of Composite Sediment fingerprinting in identifying the sources of suspended sediments of a semiarid reservoir

Abstract

Sediment source fingerprinting is intended to provide the source of the sediment carried in fluvial systems. The suspended sediment load carried by a river or stream will be a mixture of sediment from many sources and sites within the contributing catchment. This study uses sediment fingerprinting approach to investigate the sources of sediments into the wellington reservoir of Tamilnadu, India. The sediment samples were analyzed for several potential fingerprint characteristics in the laboratory. By comparing the fingerprint of the sediment sources using multivariate mixing model, the contributions from each sources were ascertained. The uncertainty from the mixing model was quantified using Monte Carlo method. The sediment fingerprinting results indicate that Agriculture lands contributes higher amount of sediments 56.01%, followed by Fallow lands with 28.24% of sediments and Forests with 15.69% of sediments. The montecarlo uncertainty analysis reveals the average error of 2% in the suspended sediment samples. The results helps in understanding the potential regions of soil erosion that should be considered for watershed management against sedimentation.