Dated deposition couplets link catchment erosion flux with storm discharge on the Chinese Loess Plateau

Tracing erosion flux within a single catchment is one of the major targets for the Earth's Critical Zone science. The sedimentary succession in landslide-dammed reservoirs within the Chinese Loess Plateau(CLP) serves as a valuable archive of past erosion history. Deposition couplets and annual freeze–thaw layers were firstly identified for the sedimentary succession of the Jingbian reservoir on the northern CLP with high-resolution XRF core scanning. The deposition couplets in the reservoir since 1963 A.D. were further dated with ^(137) Cs activity. We found consistent one-to-one correspondence between couplet specific sediment yield and storm intensity. The reconstructed soil erosion history highlights the control of storm intensity and frequency on loess erosion on the northern CLP in the past hundreds of years.

Re-evaluating the vertical mass-flux profiles of aeolian sediment at the southern fringe of the Taklimakan Desert, China

Reliable estimation of the mass-flux profiles of aeolian sediment is essential for predicting sediment transport rates accurately and designing measures to cope with wind-erosion. Vertical mass-flux profiles from seventeen wind-erosion events were re-evaluated using five typical models based on observed data obtained from a smooth bare field at the southern fringe of the Taklimakan Desert, China. The results showed that the exponential-function model and the logarithmic-function model exhibited the poorest fit between observed and predicted mass-flux profiles. The power-function model and the modified power-function model improved the fit to field data to an equivalent extent, while the five-parameter combined-function model with a scale constant（σ） of 0.00001 m（different from the σ value proposed by Fryear, which represented the height above which 50% of the total mass flux occurred） was verified as the best for describing the vertical aeolian sediment mass-flux profiles using goodness of fit（R2） and the Akaike Information Criterion（AIC） values to evaluate model performance. According to relationships among model parameters, the modified power model played a prominent explanatory role in describing the vertical profiles of the observed data, whereas the exponential model played a coordinating role. In addition, it was found that the vertical profiles could not be extrapolated using the five selected models or easily estimated using an efficient model without field observations by a near-surface sampler at 0 to 0.05 m.