Global sediment production has increased by about 467% between 1950 and 2010
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Sediment production (supply) from anthropogenic soil erosion, construction activities, mineral mining, aggregate mining, and sand and gravel mining from coasts and rivers, has increased by about 467% between 1950 and 2010.


Earth’s sediment cycle during the Anthropocene

Jaia Syvitski, Juan Restrepo ángel, Yoshiki Saito, Irina Overeem, Charles J. V?r?smarty, Houjie Wang & Daniel Olago

 

Abstract

The global sediment cycle is a fundamental feature of the Earth system, balancing competing factors such as orogeny, physical–chemical erosion and human action. In this Review, values of the magnitudes of several sources and sinks within the cycle are suggested, although the record remains fragmented with uncertainties. Between 1950 and 2010, humans have transformed the mobilization, transport and sequestration of sediment, to the point where human action now dominates these fluxes at the global scale. Human activities have increased fluvial sediment delivery by 215% while simultaneously decreasing the amount of fluvial sediment that reaches the ocean by 49%, and societal consumption of sediment over the same period has increased by more than 2,500%. Global warming is also substantially affecting the global sediment cycle through temperature impacts (sediment production and transport, sea ice cover, glacial ice ablation and loss of permafrost), precipitation changes, desertification and wind intensities, forest fire extent and intensity, and acceleration of sea-level rise. With progressive improvements in global digital datasets and modelling, we should be able to obtain a comprehensive picture of the impacts of human activities and climate warming.

Key points

  • Sediment production (supply) from anthropogenic soil erosion, construction activities, mineral mining, aggregate mining, and sand and gravel mining from coasts and rivers, has increased by about 467% between 1950 and 2010.
  • Sediment consumption in the Anthropocene, including from reservoir sequestration, highway development and coal and concrete consumption, has increased by about 2,550% between 1950 and 2010.
  • Transport of sediment from land to the coastal ocean (via rivers, wind, coastal erosion, and ice loss) has decreased by 23% between 1950 and 2010, whereas transport of fluvial particulates including organic carbon has decreased by 49% over the same period; offsets include increases in sediment delivery by icebergs and glacial melt.
  • If it were not for sequestration of sediment behind dams, global rivers would have increased their particulate loads by 212% between 1950 and 2010.
  • Anthropocene impacts on the marine sedimentary environment remain poorly characterized but, on the basis of the resuspension of seafloor sediment from trawling, dredging and land reclamation, anthropogenic transport seems to have increased by 780% between 1950 and 2010.
  • The Earth’s present Anthropocene sediment load (net land-to-sea sediment delivery and anthropogenic sediment production) exceeds 300 billion tons (Gt) per year, a mass flux that includes a small (<6%) contribution from natural processes.


https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-021-00253-w


Cite this article

Syvitski, J., ángel, J.R., Saito, Y. et al. Earth’s sediment cycle during the Anthropocene.Nat Rev Earth Environ (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-021-00253-w

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