Opportunities and Prospects of Suspended Sediment Source Tracing for Urban Catchment Management

Résumé fourni par la source

Reducing river pollution by suspended sediments can be achieved by assessing the contribution of different sources. In Russia, this approach is only starting to develop, while in many other countries it is already an important part of urban water management. The article reviews how sediment fingerprinting is applied and adapted for urban catchments using different statistical methods, and discusses the main sources of pollution in urban rivers. The authors propose to unify terminology: instead of using the borrowed word “fingerprinting” or its literal translations, the term “suspended sediment source tracing” is suggested. Methods. The method was tested on the Setun River basin, located within the Moscow agglomeration. The study applies the fingerprinting method, which includes sampling of substrates from source areas and the control point, laboratory analysis of chemical element concentrations, selection of the most representative tracers, and modeling of source contributions using statistical mixing models such as FingerPro, simmr, MixSIAR, Sed_SAT, and SIFT. Results. The study shows that in most urban catchments the main source of suspended sediment is riverbanks, and bank erosion is the key process of sediment formation. This underlines the need for measures to stabilize riverbanks. Based on a review of algorithms, a strategy was developed for applying the method to a highly urbanized catchment – the Setun River, a tributary of the Moscow River. Three main sediment sources were identified: soils from bare ground, road dust, and bank erosion. The proposed research concept makes it possible to study seasonal changes in the contribution of each source to sediment transport and, for the first time in Russian cities, to provide a scientific basis for measures to reduce sediment-related pollution in rivers.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.