Combining cosmic-ray neutron sensor and fallout Cs to explore the connection of soil water content with soil redistribution in an agroforestry hillslope.

To ensure sustainable agricultural management, there is a need not only to quantify soil erosion rates but also to obtain information on the status of soil water content and soil loss under different soil types and land uses. A clear understanding of the temporal dynamics and the soil moisture spatial variability (SMSV) will help to control soil degradation by hydrological processes. This study represents the first attempt connecting cosmic-ray neutron sensors (CRNS) with soil erosion research, a novel approach to explore the complex relationships between soil water content (SWC) and soil redistribution processes using two of the most powerful nuclear techniques, CRNS and fallout Cs.

Combined use of geochemistry and compound-specific stable isotopes for sediment fingerprinting and tracing.

Sediment fingerprinting has emerged as a valuable tool for elucidating soil erosion processes and assessing the sources of sediment and particle-bound chemicals. Due to its upward trend in popularity and the parallel advances in analytical methods, different types of tracers such as Compound-Specific Stable Isotopes (CSSIs) have been incorporated to identify the potential sources. However, the physical processes of CSSIs, usually characterised by the ratio of two stable isotopes, also depends on the isotopic content requiring specific fingerprinting models.

A novel method for analysing consistency and unravelling multiple solutions in sediment fingerprinting.

Fingerprinting technique is a widely used tool to assess the sources of sediments and particle bound chemicals within a watershed, and the results obtained from unmixing models are becoming valuable data to support soil and water resources monitoring and conservation. Nowadays, numerous studies have used fingerprinting techniques to examine specific catchment management problems. Despite its shortcomings and the lack of standardization, the technique continues on an upward trend globally.

Legacy of historic land cover changes on sediment provenance tracked with isotopic tracers in a Mediterranean agroforestry catchment.

A Compound Specific Stable Isotope (CSSI) sediment tracing approach is applied for the first time in a Mediterranean mountain agroforestry catchment subjected to intense land use changes in the past decades. Many Mediterranean mountain environments underwent conversion of rangelands into croplands during the previous centuries to increase agricultural production. Converted land has increased the risk of erosion and in some cases has led to loss of the entire fertile topsoil.

Variations in transport of suspended sediment and associated elements induced by rainfall and agricultural cycle in a Mediterranean agroforestry catchment.

Soil erosion and fine particle exports are two of the major concerns of soil nutrient loss and water quality decrease nowadays. In Mediterranean mountainous environments, agricultural practices during different cropland stages likely increase sediment supplies and the export of fertilisers and pesticides out into the drainage system. In this study, we attempt to evaluate the soil response to different agricultural practices implemented during the agricultural cycle by monitoring the bare soil cropland area through the use of remote sensing and applying the sediment fingerprinting technique together with the newly consensus-based tracer selection method.

Consensus ranking as a method to identify non-conservative and dissenting tracers in fingerprinting studies.

Soil erosion and fine particle transport are two of the major challenges in food security and water quality for the growing global population. Information of the areas prone to erosion is needed to prevent the release of pollutants and the loss of nutrients. Sediment fingerprinting is becoming a widely used tool to tackle this problem, allowing to identify the sources of sediments in a catchment.

Lateral mobilization of soil carbon induced by runoff along karstic slopes.

Soil erosion induced by runoff is a main hydrological pathway for lateral transport of carbon in terrestrial landscapes. More information about how water erosion influences the carbon gains and losses at different erosional and depositional landform positions is critical, especially in fragile agroecosystems with a variety of land uses and ephemeral hydrological and sedimentological pulses, typical of Mediterranean environments. The purpose of this study is to characterize the lateral mobilization of soil organic and inorganic carbon (SOC and SIC) along topographically driven transects over a period of four decades in a sub-humid karstic area in northern Spain.

Fingerprinting changes in source contribution for evaluating soil response during an exceptional rainfall in Spanish pre-pyrenees.

In the Mediterranean region, floods are expected to increase as a result of climate change and knowledge of soil erosion hot spots during exceptional rainfalls is required to support mitigation measures. This study quantifies the main sediment sources during an exceptional rainfall event in 2012 (235 mm) at the outlet of two catchments located in NE Spain. To this purpose, suspended sediments were collected during the flood event, complemented with entrapped sediments in mat taken one year after the event.

NDVI, Cs and nutrients for tracking soil and vegetation development on glacial landforms in the Lake Parón Catchment (Cordillera Blanca, Perú).

The present dominant trend of retreating and shrinking glaciers is leading to the formation of new soil in proglacial zones. The Cordillera Blanca located in the Peruvian Andes includes the Lake Parón catchment known for the Artesonraju Glacier and its rapid retreat, forming the largest proglacial lake in the region. This work aims to gain knowledge of soil and vegetation development on the most representative proglacial landforms existing in the Parón catchment.

A deconvolutional Bayesian mixing model approach for river basin sediment source apportionment.

Increasing complexity in human-environment interactions at multiple watershed scales presents major challenges to sediment source apportionment data acquisition and analysis. Herein, we present a step-change in the application of Bayesian mixing models: Deconvolutional-MixSIAR (D-MIXSIAR) to underpin sustainable management of soil and sediment. This new mixing model approach allows users to directly account for the 'structural hierarchy' of a river basin in terms of sub-watershed distribution.

Radionuclides and soil properties as indicators of glacier retreat in a recently deglaciated permafrost environment of the Maritime Antarctica.

Many ice-free environments in Maritime Antarctica are undergoing rapid and substantial environmental changes in response to recent climate trends. This is the case of Elephant Point (Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands, SSI), where the glacier retreat recorded during the last six decades exposed 17% of this small peninsula, namely a moraine extending from the western to the eastern coastlines and a relatively flat proglacial surface. In the southern margin of the peninsula, a sequence of Holocene raised beaches and several bedrock plateaus are also distributed.

Vertical and lateral distribution of fallout Cs and soil properties along representative toposequences of central Rif, Morocco.

The purpose of this study is to understand and quantify the relationships between current Cs inventories and the soil properties and the physiographic characteristics. A total of 36 cores were taken in seven transects with different slopes, lithology and land use. The analysis focused on the Cs mass activity as well as inventories and its relationship with soil properties as grain size and organic matter.

Selecting Color-based Tracers and Classifying Sediment Sources in the Assessment of Sediment Dynamics Using Sediment Source Fingerprinting.

The use of sediment color as a fingerprint property to determine sediment sources is an emerging technique that can provide a rapid and inexpensive means of investigating sediment sources. The present study aims to test the feasibility of color fingerprint properties to apportion sediment sources within the South Tobacco Creek Watershed (74 km) in Manitoba, Canada. Suspended sediment from 2009 to 2011 at six monitoring stations and potential source samples along the main stem of the creek were collected.

Comparing catchment sediment fingerprinting procedures using an auto-evaluation approach with virtual sample mixtures.

Information on sediment sources in river catchments is required for effective sediment control strategies, to understand sediment, nutrient and pollutant transport, and for developing soil erosion management plans. Sediment fingerprinting procedures are employed to quantify sediment source contributions and have become a widely used tool. As fingerprinting procedures are naturally variable and locally dependant, there are different applications of the procedure.

Establishing a tracer-based sediment budget to preserve wetlands in Mediterranean mountain agroecosystems (NE Spain).

Mountain wetlands in Mediterranean regions are particularly threatened in agricultural environments due to anthropogenic activity. An integrated study of source-to-sink sediment fluxes was carried out in an agricultural catchment that holds a small permanent lake included in the European NATURA 2000 Network. More than 1000 yrs of human intervention and the variety of land uses pose a substantial challenge when attempting to estimate sediment fluxes which is the first requirement to protect fragile wetlands.