Dear Morteza, Good question! The response of catchment sediment yield to changes in total precipitation are likely to depend on present climate conditions, characteristics of changes in climate (e.g. rainfall intensity, and volume, as well as seasonal distribution) and other catchment characteristics like vegetation cover, human impacts, lithology and topography. So, I’m afraid there is no simple answer to your question. There are various (modelling) studies looking at the impacts of climate change on soil erosion and sediment yield in different environmental settings that may give you an indication and examples of how to evaluate the likely response of your study area. Hope that helps..
Daer Joris, Your answer is complete and integrated. I have an idea about it. It can be investigated by trend analyses of hyrdrological drought indices such as SDI (Streamflow Drought Index) and sediment yield of some watersheds specially in different climatic regions.
Hi Morteza,
Do you mean suspended sediment yield? The magnitude and variability of any catchment sediment yield change may depend on the type of drought (e.g. intensity, length, and timing with respect to any existing seasonality in catchment sediment yield).
Drought impact may also depend, as for many systems, on the 'starting point' of the environment you are working in, i.e. how ‘close’ it happens to be to a key threshold when the drought first strikes. Responses would differ, also, if the catchment is semi-arid, or is a humid temperate, mid-latitude system, on the ability of the catchment surface to maintain its vegetation cover during drought, and catchment size and sediment storage potential.
Have a look at Albert Kettner's work e.g. on modelling environmental impacts on catchment sediment yield, e.g.
A.J. Kettner and J.P.M. Syvitski 2009 Quaternary Science Reviews, 28 (2009) 2386–2397
Albert is on Research Gate, so you can look at his papers easily.
His paper has a very long Reference list which will be a good resource for you to start mining the modelling and measurement literature with!
See also the Leuven group's copious work e.g.:
* Poesen et al (2003) Gully erosion and environmental change: importance and research needs, Catena vol 50, pp. 91– 133
and
* de Vente et al 2007 on the catchment sediment delivery problem.
I've worked at the other end of the spectrum(!), on the impacts of changing temperatures on glacial meltwater flow regimes and on the very high catchment sediment yields (top 20 in the world possibly) in southern Iceland. Reprint of a paper is attached.
Hope this helps!
Best wishes,
Damian Lawler
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