Active overbank deposition during the last century, South River, Virginia

Abstract

We quantify rates of overbank deposition over decadal to centennial timescales along the South River in Virginia using four independent methods. Detailed mercury profiles sampled adjacent to the stream channel preserve the peak historic mercury concentration on suspended sediment dating from 1955 to 1961 and suggest sedimentation rates of 8 to 50cm/100years. Sediment accumulation over the roots of trees suggest rates of 0 to 100cm/100years, with significantly higher values on levees and lower values on floodplains farther from the channel. Profiles of 137Cs and 210Pb from two eroding streambanks are fit with an advection–diffusion model calibrated at an upland reference site; these methods suggest sedimentation rates of 44 to 73cm/100years. Mercury inventories from 107 floodplain cores, combined with a previously published reconstruction of the history of mercury concentration on suspended sediment, provide spatially comprehensive estimates of floodplain sedimentation: median sedimentation rates are 3.8cm/100years for the <0.3-year floodplain, 1.37cm/100years for the 0.3- to 2-year floodplain, 0.4cm/100years for the 2- to 5-year floodplain, and 0.1cm/100years for the 5- to 62-year floodplain. While these sedimentation rates are relatively low, the total mass of sediment stored from 1930 to 2007 is 4.9±1.7 (95% confidence interval)×107kg, corresponding to an average thickness of 2.5cm (3.2cm/100years). These results demonstrate that floodplains of our 4.5-km-long study reach have stored 8 to 12% of the total suspended sediment supplied to the study reach of the South River. Hydrologic Engineering Center-River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) modeling demonstrates that the floodplain of the South River remains hydraulically connected to the channel: 56% of the 100-year floodplain is inundated every two years, and 83% of the floodplain is inundated every five years. These results, combined with previously published data, provide the basis for a regional synthesis of floodplain deposition rates since European settlement. Floodplain sedimentation rates were high following European settlement, with published estimates ranging from 50 to 200cm/100years. Sedimentation rates decreased by 1 to 2 orders of magnitude during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; but despite these lower sedimentation rates, floodplains continue to store a significant fraction of total suspended sediment load. Many floodplains of the mid-Atlantic region are active landforms fully connected to the rivers that flow within them and should not be considered terraces isolated from contemporary fluvial processes by post-settlement aggradation.