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| Titel |
Suspended sediment load in the tidal zone of an Indonesian river |
| VerfasserIn |
F. A. Buschman, A. J. F. Hoitink, S. M. Jong, P. Hoekstra, H. Hidayat, M. G. Sassi |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
1027-5606
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ; 16, no. 11 ; Nr. 16, no. 11 (2012-11-13), S.4191-4204 |
| Datensatznummer |
250013567
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/hess-16-4191-2012.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Forest clearing for reasons of timber production, open pit mining and the
establishment of oil palm plantations generally results in excessively high
sediment loads in tropical rivers. The increasing sediment loads pose a
threat to coastal marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs. This study presents
observations of suspended sediment loads in the Berau River (Kalimantan,
Indonesia), which debouches into a coastal ocean that is a preeminent center
of coral diversity. The Berau River is relatively small and drains a
mountainous, still relatively pristine basin that receives abundant rainfall.
In the tidal zone of the Berau River, flow velocity was measured over a large
part of the river width using a horizontal acoustic Doppler current profiler
(HADCP). Surrogate measurements of suspended sediment concentration were
taken with an optical backscatter sensor (OBS). Averaged over the 6.5 weeks
covered by the benchmark survey period, the suspended sediment load was
estimated at 2 Mt yr−1. Based on rainfall-runoff modeling though, the
river discharge peak during the survey was supposed to be moderate and the
yearly averaged suspended sediment load is most likely somewhat higher than
2 Mt yr−1. The consequences of ongoing clearing of rainforest were
explored using a plot-scale erosion model. When rainforest, which still
covered 50–60% of the basin in 2007, is converted to production land,
soil loss is expected to increase with a factor between 10 and 100. If this
soil loss is transported seaward as suspended sediment, the increase in
suspended sediment load in the Berau River would impose a severe stress on
this global hotspot of coral reef diversity. |
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