Sediment Budgets and Sediment Delivery Ratios in River Systems

The term sediment flux refers to sediment movement through landscapes. Analogous to “flux” in physics, i.e., the rate of flow of a property per unit area, sediment flux is the amount of sediment that flows through a cross-section of river per unit time. The magnitude of sediment flux is moderated by catchment processes such as sediment production (erosion), sediment accumulation (deposition) and intervening processes of sediment storage and reworking (transfer). Patterns and rates of sediment flux vary over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, from grain to grain and landform scale analyses over near instantaneous timeframes through reach and catchment-scale analyses that are typically performed over decadal to millennial timescales to continental-scale appraisals over millions of years. Sediment movement is a key physical driver of natural environments. It exerts a critical influence upon the morphology, process regime, and evolutionary traits of landscapes. For example, as sediment budgets quantify sediment transport pathways, they can be used to analyze the critical factors that affect landscape development. Sediment flux exerts a critical influence upon the physical template (habitat distribution) of river systems. As such, it is a key consideration in river management and restoration. Analysis of source-to-sink relationships at the catchment scale (and associated sediment budgets) highlights controls upon sediment delivery and the influence of landscape connectivity. Emphasis here is placed upon valley floor processes, giving only partial attention to hillslope forms and processes or consideration of lakes, deltas, and nearshore marine environments. Textbooks and journals that present overviews of sediment flux in river systems are considered first. A brief overview of global scale sediment flux summarizes the movement of sediment from terrestrial areas to the ocean and the imprint of human activities. Most of this contribution focuses on catchment-scale sediment budgets, emphasizing variability in sediment sources (hillslope inputs and reworking on valley floors), the thorny question of scale relations, controls upon the sediment delivery ratio, and the influence of landscape connectivity. In many instances, disturbance events disrupt the sediment regime of a river, creating distinct pulses (or waves) that are transferred downstream by dispersion or migration processes. This is followed by an analysis of approaches to measurement of sediment flux, differentiated in relation to conventional field techniques, use of sediment fingerprinting, and the emergence of a range of remotely sensed technologies. The final sections of this article outline implications of human-induced alterations to sediment flux for river management. Appraisal of sediment disasters (impacts of dams, fine-grained sediment accumulation, and mining activities) is followed by an assessment of implications for river restoration.