Abstract
Abstract Investigations of fluvial transport in the glacial river catchment (Scott River, Spitsbergen) were conducted in the melt season of 2009. A special attention was given to dynamics and distribution of bedload transport − the major component of fluvial transport in a proglacial gravel-bed river. Bed-load transport rate was determined using the River Bedload Traps (RBT) constructed for the project’s need. The obtained results indicate high diversity of bedload transport, the amount of which reached up to 220 kg m-1 day-1 for twenty-four hours in particular measurement sites. The results confirmed also great variability of local intensity fluvial processes in polar zone.
Highlights
In conditions with little anthropopression, similar to the nature of subpolar zone in the European sector of the Arctic, the type and amount of material transported by rivers is the outcome of geomorphological processes occurring in the catchment and river channel
A good example of such geosystem functioning is the catchment of the Scott River located in the NW part of the Wedel Jarlsberg Land, Calypsobyen region, Spitsbergen (Fig. 1)
Multi-annual research conducted in this catchment indicated a close relationship between proglacial outflow and observed climatic changes (Bartoszewski et al 2007) and concerned mostly the hydrological regime of the Scott River (Harasimiuk, Król 1993, Bartoszewski et al 2007, 2013, Chmiel et al 2007, Zagórski et al 2007)
Summary
In conditions with little anthropopression, similar to the nature of subpolar zone in the European sector of the Arctic, the type and amount of material transported by rivers is the outcome of geomorphological processes occurring in the catchment and river channel. Multi-annual research conducted in this catchment indicated a close relationship between proglacial outflow and observed climatic changes (Bartoszewski et al 2007) and concerned mostly the hydrological regime of the Scott River (Harasimiuk, Król 1993, Bartoszewski et al 2007, 2013, Chmiel et al 2007, Zagórski et al 2007) The former investigations of fluvial transport in the Scott River catchment (NW Spitsbergen) and in the Petunia Bukta region (Central Spitsbergen) included analysis of solution and suspension transport, without the measurements of bed load material transport (Kostrzewski et al 1989, Rachlewicz 2007, Szpikowski et al 2014) − the main component of transport in gravel-bed rivers (Hammer, Smith 1983, Warburton 1990). Determination of the elementary value of bed load concentration became an impor-
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