Groundwater controls on episodic soil erosion and dust emissions in a desert ecosystem

Feedbacks between vegetation, soils, and sediment transport processes maintain arid landscapes in geomorphically active degraded states or in more biologically productive and geomorphically stable states. Landscape evolution models and resource management strategies require a detailed understanding...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geology (Boulder) 2016-09, Vol.44 (9), p.771-774
Main Authors: Kaste, J. M, Elmore, A. J, Vest, K. R, Okin, G. S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
alkali metals
arid environment
California
cesium
clastic sediments
Cs-137
Deserts
drought
Dust
ecosystems
Emissions
Environmental geology
erosion
Geology
ground water
Groundwater
isotopes
metals
Owens Valley
radioactive isotopes
radioactive tracers
sediments
Soil erosion
soils
statistical analysis
terrestrial environment
transport
United States
variance analysis
vegetation
wind transport
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Summary:Feedbacks between vegetation, soils, and sediment transport processes maintain arid landscapes in geomorphically active degraded states or in more biologically productive and geomorphically stable states. Landscape evolution models and resource management strategies require a detailed understanding of thresholds that limit sediment transport in deserts, but it can be difficult to quantify geomorphic responses to abrupt environmental change. Here we use measurements of fallout radionuclides and salt content in soils, horizontal sediment fluxes, vegetation cover, and saturated zone depth in Owens Valley, California (USA), to quantify the geomorphic response of a desert landscape to changes in groundwater availability. Owens Valley has a well-documented history of surface-water diversions and pumping during the A.D. 1987-1992 drought, and we studied 11 sites having a gradient of ∼0.5 m to 8 m of groundwater decline during this time. We show that short-length-scale (
ISSN:0091-7613
1943-2682
DOI:10.1130/G37875.1