Sediment transport and origin in Mediterranean semi-arid basins: Sediment dynamics assessment and quantification

Sediment transport is linked to socio-economic issues, including reservoir siltation, dam storage loss, arable soil loss, terrain quality deterioration, and land productivity decline. In semi-arid regions (e.g., north of Algeria), the climate often alternates between long periods of drought and sporadic floods. Sediment production steadily occurs during dry periods as a result of various processes that disturb the soil, and it is greatly increased during a rainfall episode, due to the rain-splash effect. During a flood, heavy sediment transport occurs because of sediments originating from both the basin and hydrographic network. Consequently, to prioritize management strategies, sediment dynamics and sources contribution assessment are needed. While many methods to quantify sediment source contributions are available, their applicability is restricted by financial limitations, data availability, and suitability. So, more suitable methods are required. In this work, a rapid integration method is presented. This approach aims to separate and quantify sediments originating from the hydrographic network by water erosion and sediments supplied from the catchment, in-channel storage, and accidental processes. The required data is limited to continuous or semi-continuous sediment concentration-discharge measurements (including turbidity-based sediment concentration). The method is validated and tested for several basins, including watersheds from humid regions, to verify whether it can be generalized.