Using Source Fingerprinting Techniques to Investigate Sediment Sources during Snowmelt and Rainfall Erosion Events in a Small Catchment in the Black Soil Region of Northeast China

Pengfei Du (), Donghao Huang, Bing Liu and Wei Qin
Additional contact information
Pengfei Du: State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100048, China
Donghao Huang: College of Water Conservancy, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang 110866, China
Bing Liu: State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100048, China
Wei Qin: State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100048, China

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 3, 1-20

Abstract: Concern for the offsite impact of eroded sediment and the need to develop effective catchment sediment management strategies has directed attention to the need for an improved understanding of the primary sediment sources within catchments and the potential of sediment source fingerprinting techniques to provide such information. The study reported here was undertaken in the black soil region of Northeast China, where soil erosion is seen as a serious threat to the sustainable use of soil resources and offsite impacts of eroded soil are also concerned. The study applies source fingerprinting techniques to the evaluation of sediment sources in a small (3.46 km 2 ) agricultural catchment. Sediment sources from five snowmelt and five rainfall events of varying magnitude were contrasted. Three key potential sediment sources were identified within the study catchment: gullies, cultivated topsoil and uncultivated topsoil. Geochemical properties of the source materials (Ti, Ga, Br and Ba) were used as composite fingerprints capable of discriminating between the three potential sources. A mixing model, optimized using a genetic algorithm and coupled with a Monte Carlo procedure to quantify the uncertainty associated with the resulting estimates, was used for source apportionment. The results indicated mean source contributions for the set of 10 events for cultivated topsoil, uncultivated topsoil and the gullies of ~30%, ~10% and ~60%, respectively. In general, snowmelt and rainfall events were characterized by increased contributions from gully sources and cultivated topsoil, respectively. The study is seen as demonstrating the potential for using source tracing techniques to investigate sediment sources in environments where strong seasonal contrasts between snowmelt and rainfall events exist.

Keywords: sediment source; source fingerprinting; geochemical fingerprints; snowmelt and rainfall events (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/3/542/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/3/542/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:12:y:2023:i:3:p:542-:d:1078283

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().