Open AccessThe effect of sediment on mountain river erosion
Author(s) -
Schultz Colin
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2011eo320014
Subject(s) - stream power , sediment , erosion , hydrology (agriculture) , geology , drainage basin , sedimentary budget , environmental science , surface runoff , wepp , sediment transport , geomorphology , geotechnical engineering , soil conservation , geography , ecology , cartography , archaeology , agriculture , biology
Mountain uplift and subsequent water‐powered erosion are powerful and persistent processes shaping the landscape, and understanding the interactions between these two processes has been an area of active research for the past 2 decades. The rate of river erosion has long been considered to scale with stream power, the potential energy dissipated by water as it flows downhill. While widely used, this model has been tested in only a limited number of situations, sometimes with little success. The stream power model, in which erosion rates scale with the area of the upstream drainage basin and the slope of the stream, makes no account for the amount of sediment in the river. Sediment can increase erosion when the overall sediment levels are low or prevent it when the sediment load is high, and the sediment can form an armor‐like cover on the riverbed. ( Journal of Geophysical Research‐Earth Surface , doi:10.1029/2009JF001655, 2011)