Pollution of Lakes and Rivers Chapter 12: Erosion: tracking the accelerated movement of material from land to water Copyright © 2008 by DBS.

Pollution of Lakes and Rivers

Chapter 12:Erosion: tracking the accelerated

movement of material from land to water

Copyright © 2008 by DBS

Contents

• Erosion and human activities

• Land clearance and the increased rate of sediment accumulation in lakes

• Magnetic proxies of soil erosion

• Quantifying the erosional response to land-use changes in southern Sweden

• Contrasting erosion rates in Mexico before and after the Spanish conquest: a 4000-year perspective

• Contrasting the effects of human impacts from natural factors in sediment deposition in the Nile River Delta using a 35,000-year paleolimnological history

• Roman invasions, Napoleonic Wars, and accelerated erosion from the catchment in Llangorse Lake, Wales

• Determining the influence of human-induced changes in vegetation cover on landslide activities

• Tracking erosion resulting from massive terrestrial degradation related to acute point-source acidification

• The potential role of mammals, other than humans, in influencing erosion patterns

• Determining the factors responsible for peat erosion

ErosionErosion and Human

Activities

• “Human footprint” due to plowed fields, decreased vegetation, paved landscapes

• Sediment delivery from land to water is x5 – 10 due to human activity

• Erosion may exceed rate of new soil production

ErosionErosion and Human Activities

Dearing, 1994

ErosionErosion and Human Activities

Dearing, 1994

ErosionErosion and Human Activities

• Effects on lakes and rivers:– Increased scouring – affects fish spawning– Water clarity and quality– Increased export of pollutants and nutrients (ties in nicely with last chapters)

• Tools for analysis (primarily physical geographers)– Sedimentation rates– Composition and texture of sediments– Magnetic susceptibility

• Contemporary studies are limited by short-time scale, we need long-term– What activities result in large erosional events?– Were these sustained processes or episodic?– Have changing land-use practices altered the frequency and intensity of

erosion?– How well do sediment models perform over long time scales at inferring

erosion processes in different landscapes?

ErosionLand Clearance and the Increased Rate of

Sediment Accumulation in Lakes

• Pollen used to reconstruct vegetation changes

• 9 t km-2 y-1 to 500 t km-2 y-1

• Early peak followed by new steady-state

Davis, 1976

Forest Crops

ErosionMagnetic Proxies of Soil Erosion

• Magnetic Suseptibility – the degree of magnetization of a material in response to an applied magnetic field

• Non-destructive measurement technique

• Four major souces:

– Atmospherically derived (allogenic)

– River transported material (allogenic)

– Bacterial magnetosomes (authigenic)

– Iron sulfides (authigenic)

• Dearing (1999) summarizes the methods used to distinguish these sources

ErosionQuantifying the Erosional Response to Land-use Changes in Southern Sweden

• Comparison of paleomagnetism with local census for farms in the catchment of Havgårdssjön (Dearing et al, 1987)

• Combination of radiometic and magnetic techniques

• 5000 - 2000 BP 0.25 t ha-1 y-1

• AD 950 -1300 reached 0.86 - 2.50 t ha-1 y-1

• AD 1300 -1550 drop to 0.5 during “little ice-age” (agricultural depression)

• AD 1600 documented village and farms

• Post 1600 erosion mirrored by documented increases in plowed land

ErosionQuantifying the Erosional Response to Land-use Changes in Southern Sweden

• Lake Bussjöjön

• 4 major periods

– Sediment loading c. 10,000 y BP, high MS indicates material was not top soil

– 6500 y period of stability – top soil erosion

– Human influences c. 2500 BP – initial onset due to deforestation, larger increase due to agriculture

– Source interpreted via MS as sub-soil

Dearing et al, 1990

ErosionQuantifying the Erosional Response to Land-use Changes in Southern Sweden

• During last 300 yrs erosion has only occurred to a significant extent during drainage operations

• Since 1970 erosion has deceased

ErosionDetermining the Effects of Hydroelectric Dams

• Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD) in Canada

• Oxbow lakes, wetlands depend on periodic flooding

• Claims that damming has degraded ecosystem

• Wolfe (2006) reconstructed past flood events using MS

High energy events

Erosion Llangorse Lake, Wales

• Effects of Roman road construction (Jones et al 1978, 1985, 1991; Jones 1984)

– Accelerated sedimentation

– Clastic materials

– Changes in chemical and biological proxies

• Effect of wheat farming (18th century)

– Accelerated transport of Cu and Zn to sediments (no local sources)

• Effect of Napoleonic Wars (extended cultivation due to naval blocades)

– Cu, Zn and Ti increases

Decline in smelting, wheat productionFarmland reverted to pastureDecreased Ti due to erosional input?

ErosionDetermining the Influence of Human-induced Changes in Vegetation

Cover on Landslide Activities

• Dapples et al (2002)

ErosionTracking Erosion Resulting from Massive Terrestrial Degradation Related

to Acute Point-source Acidification

• Pearson et al (2002)

• Sudbury area smelters

Growth of the Junction Creek Delta into Kelly Lake from 1928 to 1999. Junction Creek drains the industrial and municipal core of Sudbury, including the Inco mining, milling, and smelting complexes. Aerial photographs taken in 1928, 1946, 1956, 1963, 1975, 1989, 1992, and 1997 show the rapid progradation of the delta due to severe erosion following de-vegetation in the area.

ErosionThe Potential Role of Mammals, other than Humans, in Influencing

Erosion Patterns

• Humans not solely to blame!

e.g. Elk and Bison overgrazing, trampling etc.

• Engstrom (1991) Yellowstone study determined that there was no strong effect on vegetation or soil stability relative to natural variability

ErosionDetermining the Factors Responsible for Peat Erosion

• Possible causes of blanket peat erosion:

– Climate change

– Unstable peat masses

– Human activities

– Combination of factors

• Stevenson et al (1990) used % OM in nearby lake sediments as a proxy

• Showed erosion began AD 1500 – 1700 well before atmospheric pollution

• Concluded “Little Ice Age” and/or increased burning was to blame

ErosionSummary

• Erosion is a natural process

• Speeded up by human activities

• Lakes, rivers and reservoirs usually downhill

• Sediment profiles can be used to reconstruct past erosion trends

• Most powerful when using multi-proxy indicators

• Data can be used to construct models which can be used for environmental management – determining which land-use activity poses the least environmental threat to an ecosystem

References

• Binford, M.W., Brenner, M., Whitmore, T.J., Higuera-Gundy, A., Deevey, E.S. and Leyden, B. (1987) Ecosystems, paleoecology and human disturbance in subtropical and tropical America. Quaternary Science Reviews, Vol. 6, pp. 115-128.

• Davis, M.B. (1976) Erosion rates and land use history in southern Michigan. Environmental Conservation, Vol. 3, pp. 139-148.

• Dapples, F., Lotter, A.F., van Leeuwen, J.F.N., van der Knapp, W.O., Dimitriadis, S. and Oswald, D. (2002) Paleolimnological evidence for increased landslide activity due to forest clearing and land-use since 3,600 cal BP in the western Swiss Alps. Journal of Paleolimnology, Vol. 27, pp. 239-248.

• Dearing, J.A., Håkansson, H., Liedberg-Jönsson, B., Persson, A., Skansjö, S., Widholm, D. and El-Daoushy, F. (1987) Lake sediments used to quantify erosional response to land use change in southern Sweden. Oikos, Vol. 50, pp. 60-78.

• Dearing, J.A., Alström, K., Bergman, A., Regnell, J. and Sandgren, P. (1990) Recent and long-term records of soil erosion from southern Sweden. In: Boardman, J., Foster, I.D.L. and Dearing, J.A. (eds.), Soil Erosion on Agricultural Land. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, pp. 173-191.

• Dearing, J.A. (1992) Sediment yields and sources in a Welsh upland lake-catchment during the past 800 years. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, Vol. 17, pp. 1-22.

• Dearing, J.A. (1994) Reconstructing the history of soil erosion. In: Roberts, N. (ed.), The Changing Global Environment. Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 242-261.

References

• Dearing, J.A. (1999) holocene environmental change from magnetic proxies in lake sediments. In: Maher, B.A. and thompson, R. (eds.), Quaternary Climates, Environments and Magnetism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 231-278.

• Dearing, J.A. and Foster, I.D.L. (1993) lake sediments and geomorphological processes: Some thoughts. In: McManus, J. and Duck, R.W. (eds.), Geomorphology and Sedimentology of Lakes and Reservoirs. John Wiley, Chichester, pp. 5-14.

• Dearing, J.A. and Jones, R.T. (2003) Coupling temporal and spatial dimensions of global sediment flux through lake and marine sediment records. Global and Planetary Change, Vol. 39, pp. 147-168.

• Engstrom and Wright (1984)

• Engstrom, D.R., Whitlock, C., Fritz, S.C. and Wright, H.E., Jr. (1991) Recent environmental changes inferred from the sediments of small lakes in Yellowstone’s northern range. Journal of Paleolimnology, Vol. 5, pp. 139-174.

• Engstrom et al (1994)

• Foster and Walling (1994)

• Hamilton 91994)

• Hidore (1996)

References

• Hutchinson and Cowgill (1970)

• Jones, R. (1984) Heavy metals in the sediments of Llangorse lake, Wales, since Celtic-Roman times. Verhandlungen der Internationalen Vereinigung von Limnologen, Vol. 22, pp. 1377-1382.

• Jones et al (1978)

• Jones et al (1985)

• Jones, R., Chambers, E.M. and Benson-Evans, K. (1991) Heavy metals (Cu and Zn) in recent sediments of Llangorse Lake, Wales: non-ferrous smelting, Napoleon and the price of wheat – a paleoecological study. Hydrobiologia, Vol. 214, pp. 149-154.

• Last and Smol (2001a and b)

• Maher, B.A., Thompson, R. and Hounslow, M.W. (1999) Intorduction. In: Maher, B.A. and Thompson, R. (eds.), Quaternary Climates, Environments and Magnetism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 1-48.

References

• Maher and Thompson (1999)

• O’Hara et al (1993)

• Oldfield, F. (1991) Environmental Magnetism – a personal perspective. Quaternary Science Reviews, Vol. 10, pp. 73-85.

• Pearson, D.A.B., Lock, A.S., Belzile, N. and Bowins, R.J. (2002) Assessing Kelly Lake’s history as a natural trap for mining industry and municipal effluent during the growth of Sudbury. In: Rousell, D. and Jansons, K. (eds.), The Physical Environment of the City of Greater Sudbury. Special Volume 6. Sudbury, Ontario: Ontario Geological Survey, pp. 174-192.

• Pimentel, D., Harvey, C., Resosudarmo, P. et al (1995) Environmental and economic costs of soil erosion and conservation benefits. Science, Vol. 267, pp. 1117-1123.

• Sandgren and Fredskild (1991)

• Sandgren and Snowball (2001)

References

• Scholz, C.A. (2001) Applications of seismic sequence stratigraphy in lacustrine basins. In Last, W.M. and Smol, J.P. (eds.), Tracking Environmental Change using Lake Sediments, Volume 1, Basin Analysis, Coring, and Chronological Techniques. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 7-22.

• Stanley, D.J. and Warne, A.G. (1993) Nile Delta: recent geological evolution and human impact. Science, Vol. 260, pp. 628-634.

• Stevenson, A.C., Jones, V.J. and Batarbee, R.W. (1990) The cause of peat erosion: a paleolimnological approach. New Phytologist, Vol. 114, pp. 727-735.

• Thompson, R., Battarbee, R., O’Sullivan, P. and Oldfield, F. (1975) Magnetic susceptibility of lake sediments. Limnology and Oceanography, Vol. 20, pp. 687-698.

• Wolfe, B.B., Hall, R.I., Last, W.M. et al (2006) Reconstruction of multi-century flood histories from oxbow lake sediments, Peace-Athabasca Delta, Canada. Hydrological Processes, Vol. 20, pp. 4131-4153.