Catchment Sediment Budgets and Change

Abstract

Steady state rarely, if ever, occurs in streams. That is, there is almost always gain or loss of sediment storage so that input from the slopes rarely equals output as sediment yield (Walling, 1982). Therefore, sediment yields are not indicators of upland erosional rates unless storage fluxes are also taken into account. In most cases, it was merely assumed that there was no net change of sediment storage during the period of sediment yield measurement (Trimble, 1977). The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the magnitudes and time-scales of sediment storage fluxes in small streams under different environmental conditions. (...)