Assessment of contemporary erosion/sedimentation rates trend within a small cultivated catchment using the radiocaesium-137 as a chronomarker (a case study from the Udmurt republic, European Russia)

Abstract

This paper is devoted to revealing and estimating the contemporary soil erosion rates trend within arable lands in the south of the forest zone of European Russia, based on the study of sedimentation rates at a small dry valley bottom with almost completely cultivated catchment slopes. The dry valley catchment (0.68 km2) is located in the south part of the Udmurt Republic (the mixed forests zone) within the Izh River basin. The bomb-derived and Chernobyl-derived radiocaesium–137 was used for dating valley bottom sediments in two time intervals: 1954(1963)–1986 and 1986–2016. To analyze the causes of change in sediment redistribution rates, morphological and morphometric analyzes of the valley, the results of year-to-year observations for gully heads retreat in the catchment vicinities, hydrometeorological observations of the Russian Hydrometeorological Survey network, and also aero- and satellite images across years were used. There was a noticeable decrease in the sedimentation rates of washed-out soil material from the catchment slopes at the valley bottom over the past 60 years: from 1.8–2.5 cm/year during 1954–1986 to 0.15–0.75 cm/year for 1986–2016. Hence, the sedimentation rates have decreased by 2.5–3 times as a minimum. This trend is consistent with a decline of the average retreat rates of gully headcuts within cultivated lands in the Udmurt Republic over the past 40 years — from 1.3 m/year in 1978–1997 to 0.3 m/year in 1998–2014. We suppose that the main reason for such significant reduction of erosion rates was a increase in protective crop coefficient associated with a increase in the proportion of perennial grasses since the late 1980s. Additional contribution to the erosion reduction was owing to a decrease in surface snowmelt water runoff within the catchment area since the early 2000s, associated with the reduction in soil freezing depth and general increase in air temperature during the winter and spring months in this region of the Russian Plain.