Abstract
Suspended sediment yields have been determined by combining suspended sediment rating relationships with water flow records for gauged rivers of South Island, New Zealand. Rivers draining the Western Southern Alps have specific annual yields about 10 times higher than world average rates for mountainous areas. Their short steep catchments, rising in elevation from near sea level to over 3,000 m, support dense unmodified podocarp hardwood and beech forests below 1,000 m. The drainage basins are virtually undisturbed. A simple positive power law relationship between specific annual suspended sediment yields and the extremely high mean annual rainfalls explains almost all the variance in yield for catchments of the western region. This simple law may also hold for undisturbed catchments having a temperate maritime climate, in other areas of the world.
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Griffiths, G. High sediment yields from major rivers of the Western Southern Alps, New Zealand. Nature 282, 61–63 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1038/282061a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/282061a0
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