HR: 16:00h
AN: H54A-01 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Sediment Source Fingerprinting: Progress, Problems and Prospects
AU: * Walling, D E
EM: d.e.walling@exeter.ac.uk
AF: University of Exeter, Department of Geography, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4RJ United Kingdom
AB: It is now more than thirty years since the potential for using a fingerprinting approach to identify the primary sources of the suspended sediment transported by a river was first recognised. Growing concern for the role of fine sediment in degrading aquatic habitats and the need to implement sediment management and control programmes has, however, recently focussed increasing attention on the fingerprinting approach as a means of providing key information for targeting sediment control measures. Information on sediment source is an essential precursor to the design and implementation of effective sediment management and control strategies. Recent progress in the application of the fingerprinting approach has included the utilisation of an increasingly broad spectrum of fingerprint properties, the use of improved statistical procedures for testing the ability of particular fingerprint properties to discriminate potential sources, the incorporation of uncertainty considerations into the numerical procedures employed to estimate source contributions and the use of the approach to source both suspended sediment and fine sediment associated with channel and floodplain deposits, as well as both contemporary and historical sediments. However, despite important progress, the approach still faces important problems, including the inherent spatial and temporal variability of sediment mobilization and delivery processes, selection of an effective suite of fingerprint properties, source characterization, the effects of size selective mobilization and transport on sediment properties, non conservative behaviour of sediment properties during transport and incorporation of the sediment storage continuum into source definition and interpretation. Many of these problems are being addressed by recent fingerprinting studies and further refinement of the approach promises to increase further the potential of the approach and to promote its application on a more routine basis.
DE: 1804 Catchment
DE: 1815 Erosion
DE: 4558 Sediment transport (1862)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005