Assessment of sediment delivery from successive erosion on stream-coupled hillslopes via a time series of topographic surveys in the central high mountain range of Taiwan
Journal
Quaternary International
Journal Volume
263
Pages
14-25
Date Issued
2012
Author(s)
Abstract
Landslides play an important role in the evolution of mountain topography and are a major source of sediment in tectonically active mountain belts. For the active orogeny of Taiwan, erosion rates have been assessed by various methods. The discrepancies observed between erosion rates integrated over modern and Quaternary time scales may result from various effects related to surface processes.More process-oriented research on the spatio-temporal distribution of hillslope processes and coupling relationships with the fluvial system is needed to reconcile the temporally heterogeneous data in the future. This paper assesses and describes the processes of subsequent erosion on hillslopes via a time series of topographic surveys of hillslopes after the initial failure in order to better understand the temporal and spatial variability of landslide erosion, sediment fluxes, and storage of landslide sediment within channels.The results demonstrate that hillslope-channel coupling is controlled by the relative frequency of erosive flooding events and the magnitude of rainfall-driven hillslope processes. The latter is assumed to be disproportionately high on larger failures in periods with less rainfall.Mass wasting may only affect part of the total failure's area. Volumes of eroded sediment from gullies on the landslide scar may be as high as the volume estimated for the initial failure. The geometry of the sliding masses eroded after the initial failure appears to be uniform, and their depths average 6.1 ± 2.2 m. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA.
Type
journal article