Suspended sediment sources in British rivers

Sedimentation problems have traditionally been viewed as being of limited importance in Britain. As a result there is no national sediment monitoring programme and relatively little is known about the suspended sediment loads of British rivers. The recent growth of awareness of the wider environmental significance of fine sediment and its important role in the sediment-associated transfer of nutrients and contaminants and in degrading aquatic ecosystems has emphasized the need for sediment control and management programmes. The design of such programmes requires an improved knowledge and understanding of the suspended sediment budgets of British catchments. In addition to information on sediment loads and sediment yields, there is a need for information on sediment source. Such information is difficult to obtain using traditional techniques, but source fingerprinting procedures offer an effective and reliable means of assembling such data. The authors and their co-workers have undertaken a number of source tracing investigations in British catchments and the findings from 48 catchments are synthesized in this contribution. The results are reviewed and their implications for the sediment budgets of British catchments and for the design and implementation of effective sediment management programmes are discussed.