EGU21-839
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-839
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

From the Landslide to the Mangrove; Coupling Sediment Supply Pulses and River Sediment Deposits in the context of Climate Change in Thailand.

Jerome Curoy1, Raymond Ward1,2, and John Barlow3
Jerome Curoy et al.
  • 1University of Brighton, Centre for Aquatic Environments, School of Environment and Technology, United Kingdom of Great Britain – England, Scotland, Wales (j.curoy@brighton.ac.uk)
  • 2Department of Landscape Management, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Estonia (R.D.Ward@brighton.ac.uk)
  • 3Department of Geography, University of Sussex, United Kingdom of Great Britain – England, Scotland, Wales (John.Barlow@sussex.ac.uk)

In Thailand landslides and flooding are two major natural disasters affecting more than 11 million people living in coastal provinces. Such events have significant human and economic impacts. For example, in 1988, landslides resulted in 373 deaths and caused up to US$80 million in damage (Tanavud, 2008); in 2011, floods and landslides affected more than two million people and killed 53 across Southern Thailand with a village of about 100 households being buried by one large slide (EarthObservatory, 2021). Landslides in the Krabi province in Thailand are predominantly shallow and rainfall-induced, they also represent the main source of sediment pulses for coastal environments such as mangroves and beaches. This study aims at investigating the link between sediment availability from 3 river catchments in the province of Krabi in Southern Thailand and sedimentation rate evolution in mangroves directly downstream in order to understand coastal the sediment shortages and therefore coastal erosion in that area.

Landslide inventories were evaluated using high resolution imagery (<10m) such as aerial photographs, Theos and EO-1 satellite imagery, Google Earth historical tool covering a time period from 2007 to present. Calculations of the surface areas and volumes of landslides was calculated in ArcMap using the formulae developed by Larsen et al. (2010). Landslide erosion was modelled using an approach based upon the negative power law scaling properties of rockfall magnitude–frequency distribution to establish total volumes of sediment for specific years or seasons.

Core samples taken in the mangroves near the river mouths were used to identify markers of landslide events and associated sediment cascades based on grain size distribution and 137Cs dating.

Preliminary results show sedimentation rates in the mangroves from 0.9 to 2 mm/year since 1963 and sediment volumes made available to transport from 0.3 to 68300 m3/year since 2007 across the 3 catchments.

Grain size analysis shows variations of the D50 and the sorting coefficient throughout the sediment recording indicators of landslides and high intensity rainfall events.

How to cite: Curoy, J., Ward, R., and Barlow, J.: From the Landslide to the Mangrove; Coupling Sediment Supply Pulses and River Sediment Deposits in the context of Climate Change in Thailand., EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-839, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-839, 2021.

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