SedyMONT

Climate change affects Earth surface systems, for example, via alteration of vegetation cover, human activities, and frost penetration/duration in the ground. These changes in turn are likely to influence patterns of weathering, erosion, transport and deposition of material (e.g., sediment, nutrients, solutes, and carbon) across landscape components.

It is a challenge to develop a better understanding of how such changes interact and affect sedimentary source-to-sink fluxes and budgets. Quantitative analysis of sedimentary budgets promises to be an efficient framework to assess the impact of environmental changes on sediment dynamics and evaluate landscape sensitivity.

Current knowledge on the sediment cascade within Holocene to contemporary climates forms the basis for predicting the consequences of future climate change. However, much of this information is limited in terms of spatial and temporal coverage and needs be extended and consolidated. Only after coordinated research efforts and integration of regional datasets it is advisable to apply and test, with an acceptable degree of reliability, models of landscape response to climate change.

Erdalen and Bødalen Site Project (Nordfjord,Western Norway):
Holocene, subrecent and contemporary source-to-sink-fluxes in a valley-fjord system.

Understanding the timescales and controls of sediment dynamics are a prerequisite if we aim to predict the landscape response to changes in temperature, precipitation and runoff. This requires identification of sediment sources and sinks and the mechanisms and rates of sediment transfer at sites in different environments.

The innovative approach of this new project is the integrated quantitative study of longer-term (Holocene), sub-recent and contemporary sedimentary fluxes, budgets and process rates using a novel combination of advanced methods and techniques.

With respect to the main aims and objectives of ESF SedyMONT, the following main key aims of the Erdalen and Bødalen site project can be stressed:

• Analyse how the inheritance of the landscape due to the influence of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) has affected process rates over time (paraglacial system),
• Document changes in process rates over different timescales by combining existing quantitative knowledge on Holocene process rates with newly generated data on sub-recent and contemporary process rates.