GM3.2/SSS2.20 Hillslope and fluvial denudation, source-to-sink fluxes and sedimentary budgets under changing climate and other perturbations (co-organized) |
Convener: Achim A. Beylich | Co-Conveners: Katja Laute , Sara Savi , David Morche , Armelle Decaulne |
Climate change, human activities and other perturbations like, e.g., fires and earthquakes affect Earth surface systems, for example, via alteration of vegetation cover, frost penetration/duration in the ground, and general sediment availability. These changes in turn are likely to influence existing patterns of weathering, erosion, transport and deposition of material (e.g., sediment, wood, nutrients, solutes, carbon) across defined landscape components. While it is a great challenge to develop an improved understanding of how such changes interact and affect slope and fluvial denudation rates, source-to-sink fluxes and sedimentary budgets, such quantitative analyses promise to be an efficient framework to assess the impact of environmental changes and disturbances to sediment dynamics and evaluate landscape sensitivity. Our current knowledge on the sediment cascade within Holocene to contemporary climates forms the basis for predicting the consequences of ongoing and future climate change. However, much of our information is still limited in terms of spatial and temporal coverage and needs to be extended and consolidated. Hillslopes are important elements of the terrestrial Earth surface. The rates at which mass-wasting processes act to modify hillslope morphometries are extremely varied and are driven by a number of diverse physical, chemical, and biological processes. These processes span a wide range of spatial and temporal scales and are considered to react sensitively to global climate changes, anthropogenic impacts and other perturbations. Fluvial denudation includes both chemical and mechanical fluvial denudation and its spatiotemporal variability is controlled by a range of meteorological and environmental drivers. Only after coordinated research efforts and integration of regional datasets it is advisable to apply and test, with an acceptable degree of reliability, models of landscape response to climate change, anthropogenic impacts and other perturbations. This session includes contributions on hillslope and fluvial denudation, source-to-sink fluxes and sedimentary budgets from small headwater systems to continental scales, and from long-term to contemporary timescales. A wide range of different methods and techniques of data collection, e.g., from field-based to remotely sensed and analysis/modeling is provided.