Nature and Society Relations Commons^™

Characterizing Landscape-Scale Erosion Using 10be In Detrital Fluvial Sediment: Slope-Based Sampling Strategy Detects The Effect Of Widespread Dams, Lucas J. Reusser, Paul R. Bierman, Donna M. Rizzo, Eric W. Portenga, Dylan H. Rood

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

Concentrations of in situ 10Be measured in detrital fluvial sediment are frequently used to estimate long-term erosion rates of drainage basins. In many regions, basin-averaged erosion rates are positively correlated with basin average slope. The slope dependence of erosion allows model-based erosion rate estimation for unsampled basins and basins where human disturbance may have biased cosmogenic nuclide concentrations in sediment. Using samples collected from southeastern North America, we demonstrate an approach that explicitly considers the relationship between average basin slope and erosion rate. Because dams and reservoirs are ubiquitous on larger channels in the field area, we selected 36 undammed …