CATENA-01345; No of Pages 11
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Catena xxx (2008) xxx–xxx
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Catena
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / c a t e n a
Trends and controls of Holocene floodplain sedimentation in the Rhine catchment
Thomas Hoffmann a,⁎, Gilles Erkens b, Renate Gerlach c, Josef Klostermann d, Andreas Lang e
a
Department of Geography, University of Bonn, Meckenheimer Allee 166, 53115 Bonn, Germany
Department of Physical Geography, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands
c
Rheinisches Amt für Bodendenkmalpflege, Endenicher Straße 133, 53113 Bonn, Germany
d
Geologisches Landesamt, Nordrhein-Westfalen, De-Greiff-Straße 195, 47803 Krefeld, Germany
e
Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, L69 7TZ, United Kingdom
b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 17 December 2007
Received in revised form 25 July 2008
Accepted 2 September 2008
Available online xxxx
Keywords:
Floodplain sedimentation rate
Human impact
Climate impact
Catchment size
Radiocarbon dating
Holocene
a b s t r a c t
Holocene floodplain sedimentation in the Rhine catchment is controlled by human and climate impacts.
Intricate river behaviour modifies the fluvial response to the external impacts making cause–effect analysis
difficult, especially on large spatial scales. To better understand the relative importance and interdependencies
of external and internal controls, temporally resolved floodplain sedimentation rates are established using
three different methods: i) floodplain storage studies on the trunk stream, ii) depth/age-analysis of overbank
deposits from different parts of the catchment and iii) cumulative frequency distributions of 14C-ages from
floodplain deposits from various parts of the catchment. The applied methodology strongly differs with the
available temporal resolution and the size of the corresponding catchment. All three methods show a strong
increase in sedimentation rate for more recent periods that can be linked to increasing human impact.
Evidences for climate impacts and intricate river behaviour are less clear and hindered by insufficient temporal
resolution of the currently available data.
© 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In fluvial systems the effects of flooding as well as the associated
erosion, transport and deposition of sediments are controlled by the
physiographic setting of a catchment and are moderated by climateand land cover/land use change. Even though land use and climate are
not independent, they change at different spatial and temporal scales,
exerting a complex driver pattern on fluvial systems. When addressing long-term interactions between past climate, human activities,
and ecological processes (Dearing et al., 2007), it is of great
importance to understand the spatial and temporal dynamics of
erosion and sedimentation in detail. Furthermore, floodplain sedimentation is a proxy for long-term changes in flood regime; the longterm erosion of soil, sediment and organic matter; and the changing
impact on coastal systems. River systems are characterised by complex
behaviour with variable sediment sources, temporal gaps in downstream sediment propagation and changing trapping efficiency of
sediment sinks (Erkens et al., in press; Lewin and Macklin, 2003). The
most promising concept for understanding such complexities is the
sediment budget approach. If available at a variety of spatial and
temporal scales, sediment budgets allow unravelling of the dynamic
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (T. Hoffmann).
behaviour and thus the trajectory of river response (Dearing and Jones,
2003). Despite that there are numerous sediment budgets available
for small drainage basins and longer time spans (millennia) (de Moor,
2006; Dotterweich et al., 2003; Houben, 2006; Lang et al., 2003;
Rommens et al., 2006) as well as for large drainage basins and short
time spans (decades) (Asselman et al., 2003; Shi and Zhang, 2005;
Wasson, 2003), little is known about the response of large fluvial
systems on temporal scales that match the period of human impact.
Nevertheless, this knowledge is essential to integrate river based
sediment fluxes in global biogeochemical cycles.
On the time scales of centuries and millennia, rivers cannot be
viewed as conveyor belts that just deliver eroded soil and sediment to
the oceans. Within-basin storage on slopes and in floodplains is
essential and often exceeds delivery (Goodbred and Kuehl, 1999;
Hoffmann et al., 2007; Trimble, 1999). Floodplain storage therefore has
three major implications: first, floodplains are an important recorder
of river history and are commonly used to infer river response to
external impacts (Brown, 1996). The advantage of floodplain sediments for paleoenvironmental reconstructions lies in their spatial
ubiquity. The open-system character of rivers, however, results in a
rather incomplete floodplain record (Aalto et al., 2003; Brown, 1996;
Paola, 2003). Second, floodplains store sediment and therefore alter
the downstream sedimentary signal in response to external changes
and floodplain deposition. Floodplain storage reduces sediment in
the river channel, therefore decreasing the amount of overbank
deposition further downstream and the propagation of an external
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Please cite this article as: Hoffmann, T., et al., Trends and controls of Holocene floodplain sedimentation in the Rhine catchment, Catena (2008),
doi:10.1016/j.catena.2008.09.002
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signal along the channel. To reconstruct paleoenvironmental conditions, it is of first order importance to understand how a drainage
basin (e.g. via floodplain storage) smoothes climate- and humaninduced perturbations (Métivier and Gaudemer, 1999; Walling, 2006).
Third, the degree of lateral erosion and channel incision strongly
influence the trapping efficiency, the rate of floodplain deposition and
the preservation potential (Lewin and Macklin, 2003). Therefore
sedimentation rates of overbank deposits may change in response to
autogenic adjustments without changes of external conditions. Also,
the coupling relationships and the efficiency of sediment delivery
between system components is dynamic and changes as a river basin
adjusts to external triggers (Lang et al., 2003), with the buffering effect
of floodplains increasing with catchment size resulting in a decreased
sensitivity in larger catchments (Dearing and Jones, 2003; Walling,
1983, 2006).
Many results on Holocene evolution are available from case
studies of river catchments, with data for sediment transport and
deposition extracted from colluvial deposits, lake sediments and
floodplain sediments. This data is usually dispersed so that upscaling
to derive system-wide information remains difficult. One approach
to integrate case study information is by establishing databases of
dated floodplain units. This has recently been established for several
river systems (Hoffmann et al., in press; Lewin et al., 2005; Macklin et
al., 2006; Starkel et al., 2006; Thorndycraft and Benito, 2006) and
facilitates a system-wide analyses that assists to unravel important
gaps in knowledge. Information stored in such databases usually
includes sedimentary environment, stratigraphy and age. The main
use of the data so far has been for frequency analyses in order to
establish a proxy for flood recurrence and magnitude. Approaches
focusing on the analysis of changing floodplain sedimentation
rates based on age and depth of radiocarbon samples are reported
for the Yellow and Mississippi rivers (Knox, 2006; Shi et al., 2002;
Xu, 2003, 1998). In general, these show a strong increase in
floodplain sedimentation rate associated with increasing agricultural
activities.
Here we use three differing approaches to reconstruct long-term
floodplain sedimentation rates at different spatial scales in the Rhine
catchment. The first approach focuses on time-dependent sediment
storage of overbank deposits to estimate changing sedimentation
rates in the Lower and Upper Rhine Graben and the Rhine delta. The
second approach utilizes a newly compiled 14C-database from alluvial
and colluvial deposits in Germany (Hoffmann et al., in press) to
estimate sedimentation rates during the Holocene. In the third
approach the same database is analysed and frequency distributions
of 14C-ages constructed to identify phases of increased floodplain
deposition. All three approaches focus on silty to clayey overbank
deposits as these sediments are assumed to be closely coupled to soil
erosion processes on the hillslopes and therefore show most clearly
the response of fluvial systems to external impacts (cf. Erkens et al.,
2006). The three methods used differ concerning their spatial scale
and temporal resolution. The potential of these independent
approaches to evaluate the impacts on climate and land use change
at different spatial scales are discussed. We show that all approaches
suggest a strong human impact on floodplain sedimentation, while
climate impacts are much harder to detect.
2. Study area
The River Rhine drains large parts (~ 185 000 km2) of Central
Europe between the European Alps (highest elevation 4275 masl) and
the North Sea (Fig. 1). The length of the main river channel is about
1320 km. The Rhine drainage basin has very heterogeneous catchment
characteristics regarding climate, hydrology, geology, geomorphology
and land use history. Mean annual precipitation in the Rhine
catchment ranges from ~ 500 mm in Rheinhessen (west-central
Germany) to ~ 2000 mm in the Swiss Alps. The hydrological regime
shifts from glacio-nival in the alpine reaches, to dominantly pluvial
further downstream. Mean low flow, mean annual discharge and mean
flood discharge at the delta apex are 1000 m3s− 1, 2500 m3s− 1 and
6000 m3s− 1 respectively (Spreafico,1996). The modern suspended load
near the Dutch–German border (at Rees) is approx. 3.3 · 106 t year− 1
(Asselman et al., 2003; Kempe and Krahe, 2005).
Two large tectonic basins (i.e. the Upper Rhine Graben and the
Lower Rhine Graben–Southern North Sea Basin) act as major sediment
sinks in the fluvial system. The floodplain storage analysis undertaken
focuses on the northern Upper and Lower Rhine Graben and the Rhine
delta because the floodplain stratigraphic record is most complete in
these sediment sinks (Hoffmann et al., 2007). On time scales longer
than 104 years the Alps and the other upland areas in Germany (e.g.
Rhenish Massif, Black Forest) and France (Vosges) are major sediment
sources. Loess-covered rolling hills characterise large parts of the
catchment and are prime areas for arable land use since the Neolithic
onwards (Lang, 2003). Agriculture increased soil erosion and as a
result the hillslopes became a main source of sediment carried
downstream by Rhine tributaries during the Holocene (Bork et al.,
1998; Houben et al., 2006; Lang et al., 2003; Mäckel et al., 2003). Since
the Medieval period, channelization, embanking, sediment mining
and dam construction have resulted in decreased sediment exchange
between river channels and adjacent floodplains. In the delta,
embankments influencing sediment exchange have existed since the
12th century AD (Berendsen and Stouthamer, 2001). Widespread
reforestation in the last century and conservation agriculture in recent
decades have counteracted the intense erosion associated with earlier
agricultural practices.
3. Floodplain storage based sedimentation rates
3.1. Methodology
Sedimentation rates in the Rhine delta, the Lower Rhine Graben
and the northern Upper Rhine Graben were calculated based on
detailed borehole data.
In the Rhine delta a cross-section was constructed using 280 drill
cores to determine the vertical build up of the delta during the
Holocene (Cohen, 2003; Erkens et al., 2006). Time lines were drawn in
the cross-section based on a radiocarbon chronology (for more details
see Cohen, 2005; Erkens et al., 2006; Gouw and Erkens, 2007).
Additional age-control comes from associated archaeology (Berendsen
and Stouthamer, 2001) and from paleogroundwater table reconstructions (a 3D geostatistical interpolation model based on N300 index
points; Cohen, 2005). This enabled us to draw time lines with a
temporal resolution of 1000 years. Using the time lines, the Holocene
deltaic aggradation record was subdivided into 6 sediment slices
between 7000 and 1000 cal yrs BP (Erkens et al., 2006). For each
sediment slice the sedimentation rate was calculated from the average
thicknesses of clay deposits.
In the Lower Rhine Graben sedimentation rates were calculated for
three time slices: the thicknesses of overbank deposits was estimated
from 3501 coring logs within the floodplains of the Lower Rhine,
which were provided by the Geological survey of Nordrhein
Westfalen. The temporal information was taken from the age of
terrace levels as published on the geological map (scale 1:100 000) of
that region. The three Holocene terrace levels are mapped and
assigned ages of 8500–3500 BC, 3500–0 BC and 0 BC–1800 AD
(Klostermann, 1992).
In the northern Upper Rhine Graben information from 210
boreholes distributed along three cross-sections were analysed.
Temporal evidence is available from OSL dating of terrace levels and
pollen analysis of oxbow-lake deposits (Dambeck and Bos, 2002;
Erkens et al., in press). Overbank sedimentation rates were calculated
for the Early Holocene (8500–4000 BC), Middle Holocene (4000–0 BC)
and Late Holocene (0–2000 AD).
Please cite this article as: Hoffmann, T., et al., Trends and controls of Holocene floodplain sedimentation in the Rhine catchment, Catena (2008),
doi:10.1016/j.catena.2008.09.002
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Fig. 1. Study area with locations of corings, cross-sections and
The three regions used for floodplain storage analysis correspond
to sub-catchment sizes of 70 000 km2 (Upper Rhine Graben),
155 000 km2 (Lower Rhine Graben) and 185 000 km2 (entire Rhine
catchment at the delta).
3
14
C-samples.
with time, there is an accelerated increase in the Upper Rhine Graben
that started approximately 3000 years ago. The data indicate a strong
3-fold increase of floodplain sedimentation during the Holocene in the
Rhine delta and the Lower Rhine Graben, compared to a more gradual
but accelerated (2-fold) increase at the Upper Rhine.
3.2. Results
4. Depth/age-analysis of
Sedimentation rates calculated from sediment volumes of the
Rhine delta, the Lower Rhine Graben and Upper Rhine Graben are
shown in Fig. 2. All three areas show a consistent increase of
sedimentation rates during the Holocene. While sedimentation rates
in the Rhine delta and the Lower Rhine increase more or less linearly
14
C-ages
4.1. Methodology
Based on a newly compiled 14C-database of alluvial and colluvial
samples from Germany (Hoffmann et al., in press), floodplain
Please cite this article as: Hoffmann, T., et al., Trends and controls of Holocene floodplain sedimentation in the Rhine catchment, Catena (2008),
doi:10.1016/j.catena.2008.09.002
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Fig. 2. Holocene sedimentation rates in the Rhine delta (A) and Lower (B) and Upper (C) Rhine Graben calculated based on alluvial storage in floodplains.
sedimentation rates (SR) were calculated based on the 14C-age Ti and its
depth Di below the surface:
SRi;obs ¼ ðDi −Di−1 Þ=ðTi −Ti−1 Þ
ð1Þ
14
where Di and Ti are the depth and age of the C-sample, respectively,
and Di − 1 and Ti − 1 are the depth and age of the following stratigraphic
younger 14C-sample. Ti represents the mean value of the 2σ-age range
given by the calibrated age. In the case of the uppermost 14C sample, i = 1
and D0 = 0 and T0 = 0. Sedimentation rates during the last 14 000 years
were calculated based on 115 floodplain samples. 14C-ages not in
stratigraphic order (i.e. age increase with depth) were excluded from the
analysis. To increase the number of observations the database extended
beyond the Rhine catchment to include data from adjacent catchments,
with a similar land use history and climate regime (Fig. 1).
Most sedimentation rates are calculated based on boreholes for
which only one 14C-age is available (Table 1). In these cases only an
average sedimentation rate since deposition of the dated sample can
be calculated. This results in a strong averaging effect as changes in
sedimentation rate since the deposition of the dated object can not be
revealed. To evaluate the effect of averaging, which is inherent to this
approach, we modelled sedimentation rates based on three different
scenarios with changing sedimentation rates SRassumed (t). The 1000 BC
scenario assumes a constant sedimentation rate of 0.3 mm a− 1 between
12 000 and 1000 BC and a linear increase from 0.3 to 4 mm a− 1 since
1000 BC to present. The 500 AD and 1800 AD scenarios are similar to the
1000 BC scenario, but with a later start of the linear increase at 500 AD
and at 1800 AD, respectively. Based on these scenarios, we calculated the
depth D of subsurface layers with different ages T:
Z
D¼
T
0
SRassumed ðt Þdt
ð2Þ
The ratio D/T gives the modelled mean sedimentation rate SRmodel,
which was compared to the observed mean sedimentation rates
SRmean.obs given by the 14C-ages. The SRmean.obs of each 14C-date was
calculated based on its depth D and its age T by SRmean.obs = D/T
independently of other 14C-ages within the same borehole.
4.2. Results
The majority of the 115 14C-samples originate from floodplain
deposits in catchments between 1 and 1000 km2. The minority of the
data derive from very small (b1 km2) and very large catchment
(N1000 km2) (Table 1). The largest number of ages (45) was obtained
on locations where only one sample was available. Furthermore, 26
Please cite this article as: Hoffmann, T., et al., Trends and controls of Holocene floodplain sedimentation in the Rhine catchment, Catena (2008),
doi:10.1016/j.catena.2008.09.002
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Table 1
Distribution of
14
C-samples in drillings (left) and catchments of different sizes (right)
# 14C-samples
per drilling
Number of
drillings
Catchment size
[km2]
#
14
1
2
3
4
5
6
45
16
4
5
0
1
–
b 0.1
0.1–10
1–10
10–100
100–1000
1000–10 000
12
1
5
27
28
35
7
C-samples
samples originate from locations, which were analysed in great detail
and for which two or more samples per location were available
(Table 1). The spatial distribution of the 14C-data is shown in Fig. 1. The
data are not evenly distributed throughout the Rhine catchment but
show strong clusters i) around Freiburg in the Southern Upper Rhine
Graben (Mäckel et al., 2002, 2003; Seidel, 2004; Seidel and Mäckel,
5
2007), ii) around Frankfurt in the Wetter catchment (Andres et al.,
2001; Houben, 1997; Kalis et al., 2003; Nolte, 1999), iii) at the Danube
river close to Regensburg (Hilgart, 1995; Nolte, 1999), iv) at the
Weserbergland (Mäusbacher et al., 2001) and v) at the Lippe valley
(Herget, 2000). The Danube river and the Weserbergland are not part
of the Rhine catchment (Fig. 1).
Sedimentation rates calculated from 14C-samples using Eq. (1)
(Fig. 3A) are between 0.1 and 1 mm a− 1 prior to 0 BC/AD and show a
strong scatter after 0 BC/AD. While in a number of places sedimentation rates remain constant after 0 BC/AD, in other places maximum
floodplain sedimentation rates increase up to 8 mm a− 1 during the last
2000 years. The scatter plot shown in Fig. 3A can best described by a
power law increase with:
SRmax ¼ 222:5T − 0:7
where SRmax = sedimentation rate in mm a
before 2000 AD (black line in Fig. 3A).
ð3Þ
−1
and T = time in years
Fig. 3. A) Changing floodplain sedimentation rates based on 115 14C-ages from floodplains of German rivers. Symbols indicate the size of the corresponding catchment. B) Effect of
averaging due to sedimentation rate calculation using the 14C-ages and sample depths. The three scenarios differ in the onset of increased sedimentation at 1000 BC (1, blue line), 500
AD (2, green line) and 1800 AD (3, red line). The broken lines show the apparent sedimentation rates for the three scenarios. C) Comparison of measured sedimentation rate from the
14
C-ages and apparent sedimentation rates calculated from 1000 BC, 500 AD and 1800 AD scenarios. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is
referred to the web version of this article.)
Please cite this article as: Hoffmann, T., et al., Trends and controls of Holocene floodplain sedimentation in the Rhine catchment, Catena (2008),
doi:10.1016/j.catena.2008.09.002
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Due to the large scatter and the low number of samples, no
significant difference between sedimentation rates calculated for
differently sized catchments can be observed. The general increase of
floodplain deposition is visible at all catchment sizes larger than 1 km2
(Fig. 3A). For catchments smaller than 1 km2, this trend is not observed
because there are no 14C-samples older than 2500 years.
Based on three different scenarios, applied for the reconstruction
of Holocene sedimentation rates, the averaging effect inherent in the
calculations was evaluated assuming a stable Early and Middle
Holocene sedimentation rate of 0.3 mm year− 1 and a linear increase
of 4 mm year− 1 in the Late Holocene, starting at 1000 BC, 500 AD or
1800 AD (Fig. 3B). In general, the averaging effect results in
sedimentation rates (modelled rates in Fig. 3B) which are at any
time higher than the assumed values. The comparison of modelled
sedimentation rates with the upper limit of the observed mean
sedimentation rates SRmean,obs (Fig. 3C) shows the best fit with the 500
AD scenario (a linear increase of floodplain deposition since 500 AD)
while the 1000 BC and 1800 AD scenarios result in much too high and
much too low sedimentation rates, respectively. The fit of the 500 AD
scenario to the upper limit of the mean observed sedimentation rates
takes into account that a number of estimated sedimentation rates are
obtained from study areas that are not affected by human impact and
therefore show no increase in floodplain sedimentation.
5. Cumulative frequency distributions of floodplain
14
C-ages
5.1. Methodology
Statistical analyses of 14C-ages have long been used to unravel
environmental change (Geyh, 1980). More recently, cumulative
frequency distributions (CFD) of 14C-ages obtained on alluvial
deposits have been used to provide a framework to analyse and
compare Holocene river sequences in Europe in a systematic manner
(Gregory et al., 2006; Macklin et al., 2006). This approach is
applied by Hoffmann et al. (in press) to the German 14C-database
of alluvial and colluvial 14C-ages to reconstruct phases of increased
geomorphic activity in Germany. The 14C-ages are classified to
represent activity, stability and transitional phases based on the
depositional environment of the dated sample. It is assumed that
calculated probability frequencies of activity ages are a proxy for
Holocene geomorphic activity (Hoffmann et al., in press). To compare
the calculated floodplain sedimentation rates with the CFD-analysis
only 14C-ages of overbank deposits from floodplains were used in
this analysis. However, cumulative frequency distributions are
biased as a result of the shape of the calibration curve, the higher
preservation potential of younger materials and higher sampling
probability of shallower sediments. Therefore the frequency distribution of the activity ages was normalized on the frequency
distribution of the entire colluvial and alluvial 14C-database
(Hoffmann et al., in press) and probabilities are given as relative
probability curves.
Due to the spatial distribution of the 14C-samples, which mainly
result from catchments smaller than 1000 km2, the analysis of
changing sedimentation rates and the CFD of alluvial 14C-ages focus on
the response of fluvial systems at the medium to small spatial scale
(Table 1).
5.2. Results
The cumulative frequency distribution of 51 floodplain 14C-ages
(Fig. 4A) shows increased floodplain deposition at the Late Glacial–
Holocene transition (11000 BC to 9000 BC), stable floodplain
environments during the Early and early Middle Holocene (9000 BC
to 5000 BC) and increased floodplain deposition in the Late Holocene
(most notably since ~1500 BC). The time between 5000 BC and 1500
BC is characterised by phases of increased floodplain deposition,
which should be treated with care due to their low statistical
significance. Due to the applied normalization procedure, it is
assumed that the increased frequency during the last 3500 years is
not biased by the better preservation potential of younger ages, but
results from increased floodplain deposition during that time.
However, the high temporal resolution of the cumulative frequency
distribution reveals not a steady increase since 1500 BC but rather
phases of higher probabilities at 1000 BC, 300 BC and 1100 AD
interrupted by phases of lower probabilities at 700 BC, 200 AD and
1400 AD.
To compare the differential responses of hillslopes and rivers, the
cumulative frequency distribution of colluvial 14C-ages is given in
Fig. 4B. In contrast to floodplains, 14C-ages from slopes do not show a
general trend since ~8000 BC. The cumulative frequency distribution
Fig. 4. Normalized cumulative probability density (CPD) of A) 51 floodplain 14C-ages and B) 62 colluvial slope 14C-ages (Hoffmann et al., in press). Gray shaded areas mark phases were
the CPD is larger than the mean probability of the corresponding CPD.
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of colluvial ages shows phases of increased activity that are more
equally distributed since 8000 BC, with stronger peaks around 7000
BC, 5500 BC, 2500 BC and the most recent past (since 1200 AD).
6. Discussion
6.1. Advantages and disadvantages of methods
The three approaches used in this study are characterised by different
output parameters and their different temporal resolutions (Table 2). The
floodplain storage and depth/age-analysis of the 14C-database result in
floodplain sedimentation rates with dimension length per time (e.g.
mm a− 1). Through measurements of the density of floodplain deposits,
sedimentation rates can be transferred to mass balances, which are of
major interest in the study of sediment flux in river systems. In this way
the numbers obtained can directly be compared to other geomorphological processes or with different regions. The possibility of correlating
the time-dependent sedimentation rates with time series of external
impacts is, however, limited by the low temporal resolution. In the case
of the Rhine delta, the exceptionally large number of 14C-ages allowed
establishing floodplain storage with 1000 year resolution (Berendsen
and Stouthamer, 2001). However, in the Upper Rhine and Lower Rhine
Graben the low temporal resolution (three time slices, on average each
approx. 3000 years long) results from pedological information and a
limited number of OSL and 14C-ages. Based on the floodplain storage,
only general trends of system behaviour become evident.
The temporal resolution of the depth/age-analysis of 14C-ages
varies depending on the 14C-age due to the averaging effect: the longer
the period averaged (that is the greater the age) the lower the
temporal resolution and therefore the lower the sensitivity. To test the
sensitivity of the depth/age-analysis two further scenarios were
designed based on the 1800 AD scenario: one with a long (2000 years)
moderate (4 mm a− 1) increase (Fig. 5A) and another with a short
(400 years) but intense (7 mm a− 1) increase (Fig. 5B). The timing of the
increase was chosen arbitrarily. As shown in Fig. 5A, only the longlasting phase (e.g. longer than 2000 years) of increased sedimentation
will significantly alter the overall graph. Short term phases (e.g.
400 years) of increased sedimentation will not be significantly
reflected in the observed sedimentation rate, even if sedimentation
increases by a factor of 14 (Fig. 5B). Using such a depth/age-analysis of
14
C-ages, short term changes of sedimentation rates will be hard to
Table 2
Overview on the different methods used: temporal resolution, spatial scales and
controlling factors
Region, or
controlling
factor, res.
Output parameter
Temporal
resolution
URG
LRG
Delta
Catchment area
URG
LRG
Delta
Onset of increasing URG
sedimentation rates LRG
Delta
Magnitude of
URG
sedimentation rate LRG
increase
Delta
Controlling factor
Human impact
Climate impact
Catchment size
Floodplain
storage
Frequency
distribution
Sedimentation Probability
rate
density of
14
C-ages
3300 a
50–200 a
3300 a
1000 a
1–103 km2
70 000 km2
155 000 km2
1–103 km2
180 000 km2
b 10 000 km2
~1000 BC
1300 BC
Variable
Variable
~3
–
~2.5
~3
Strong
Strong
Not evident
Evident
Evident
Evident
URG = Upper Rhine Graben, LRG = Lower Rhine Graben.
Temporal resolution given in years (a).
Depth/
age-analysis
Sedimentation
rate
Variable
(decreasing
with age)
1–103 km2
1–103 km2
b10 000 km2
500 AD
8–16
Strong
Not evident
–
7
detect unless high resolution chronologies are available at a large
number of sites. At present, as shown in Table 1, the number of
locations with more than two 14C-ages is currently very limited, which
is especially problematic for the Early and Middle Holocene.
Based on the floodplain storage approach and the depth/ageanalysis of 14C-samples a general increasing trend in floodplain
sedimentation is observed that coincides with the general increasing
pressure of humans on the Rhine system (Hoffmann et al., in press).
This trend may well be overprinted by climate change-induced signals,
but due to the limited temporal resolution of the floodplain storage
and the depth/age-analysis, climate-driven short term variations
cannot be observed. Compared to these approaches the CPD-analysis
(Fig. 4) has a much higher temporal resolution. Single peaks of the
CPD-plot show widths of approximately 50 years and longer phases of
increased probability rapidly rise and fall within short periods of time.
The CFD are a combination of 14C-dates from various locations, some
which are situated hundreds of km apart. It is well possible that one
site experienced increased SR during a specific period and that for this
period more 14C-dates are available but that this is not a general trend
within the whole catchment. Furthermore, the analysis of single
narrow peaks should be treated with care due to their low statistical
significance (Hoffmann et al., in press).
Despite the high temporal resolution of the CPD-analysis there are two
major methodical drawbacks: (1) the CPD-analysis results in probability
frequencies of 14C-ages, which can not by transferred into sediment
volumes or fluxes. Therefore, direct comparison of the CPD-analysis with
floodplain storage and depth/age-calculations from 14C-samples is not
possible; (2) low probabilities of the CDP-plot do not necessarily suggest
low fluvial activity. Low probabilities may just result from a lack of dating
evidence for times with high fluvial activity.
To obtain a more detailed picture of the floodplain sedimentation
history at large spatial scales a better spatial data representation and
an improved chronological framework is needed that provides higher
temporal resolution.
6.2. Sensitivity of fluvial systems to external impacts
Despite the limitations of each of the methods used, the
combination of these three methods allows new insights into the
fluvial history of the Rhine catchment at large spatial and long
temporal scales. In fact, these are the first reported basin wide
floodplain sedimentation rates for the non-alpine Rhine catchment.
All three independent approaches show an accelerating increase of
sedimentation rates during the Late Holocene, especially after a major
increase of soil erosion during the Bronze Age (Lang, 2003; Lang et al.,
2003). The magnitude of this increase is unmatched by any climate
change and clearly suggests the importance of human interference for
increasing riverine sediment fluxes during the last 3000 years
(Hoffmann et al., in press).
In the delta, sea level forms a base level for the river and provides
accommodation space for sedimentation. Especially during the Early
Holocene, relative sea level rise is strongly influencing Holocene
deltaic sedimentation (Berendsen and Stouthamer, 2001; Gouw and
Erkens, 2007; Tornqvist, 1993). However, after ~5000 cal yrs BP,
eustatic sea level rise ceased and the remaining lower relative sea
level rise is driven by land subsidence only (Cohen, 2005). This implies
that sedimentation thereafter is only controlled by locally formed
accommodation space and upstream sediment delivery (Gouw and
Erkens, 2007). The cross-section used in this study to reconstruct
sedimentation rates is located half-way upstream the delta to
minimize the strong pre-5000 BP sea level impact, but at the same
time to comprise the longest possible sedimentation record. During
the last 5000 years, the decrease in relative sea level rise in the Rhine
delta causes a gradual decrease in accommodation space, but
sedimentation rates nevertheless increased during this period. This
indicates that floodplain sedimentation overruled the available
Please cite this article as: Hoffmann, T., et al., Trends and controls of Holocene floodplain sedimentation in the Rhine catchment, Catena (2008),
doi:10.1016/j.catena.2008.09.002
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Fig. 5. Implication of averaging effect in depth/age-analysis of 14C-samples. A) The 1800 AD scenario is superimposed by a 2000 year increase of sedimentation of 4 mm a− 1 between
3000 and 1000 BC. B) The 1800 AD scenario is superimposed by a 400 year increase of sedimentation of 7 mm a− 1 that occurs between 3000 and 2600 BC.
accommodation space, which supports our conclusion of strongly
increased sediment delivery from upstream during the last millennia.
However, in the case of the Upper and Lower Rhine Graben, the
progressive incision of the River Rhine during the Holocene may have an
important impact on long-term floodplain sedimentation rates (Erkens
et al., in press). Due to the progressive incision, the floodplain area
decreased during the Holocene, resulting in a smaller accumulation
space available and therefore possibly in higher sedimentation rates.
Until now, the importance of this fact is, however, not known because
the incision also reduces the trapping efficiency of the floodplains and
may therefore counteract the tendency towards increasing sedimenta-
tion rates. Furthermore, the fact that floodplain sedimentation rates
increase in the aggrading Rhine delta (even under increasing floodplain
area; Cohen, 2005; Gouw and Erkens, 2007) clearly indicates increasing
sediment input into the River Rhine during the last 3000 years.
Due to methodical differences and the large data scatter, which results
from the spatial lumping at the regional scale, the exact timing of the
accelerated increase is difficult to determine. The latest phase of increased
probability of floodplain 14C-ages starts 3300 years ago (Fig. 4) and is in
good agreement with the floodplain storage analysis, which suggests an
accelerated increase in the northern Upper Rhine Graben approximately
during the last 3000 years (Fig. 2). In contrast, the depth/age-analysis of
Fig. 6. Sensitivity analysis of the start of increased floodplain sedimentation. The 0 AD scenario starts at 0 AD and reaches maximum sedimentation rates of 3.5 mm a− 1, the 500 AD
scenario has maximum sedimentation rates of 4 mm a− 1 and the 1000 AD has maximum sedimentation rates of 6 mm a− 1.
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doi:10.1016/j.catena.2008.09.002
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14
C-ages in combination with the modelling of 14C-sedimentation rates
indicates an accelerated increase only during the last 1600 years.
The strong temporal differences of approximately 1500 years
between the start of increased probability and the accelerated
sedimentation as given by the floodplain storage of the northern Upper
Rhine may indicate differential fluvial response depending on catchment
size. As shown in Table 1, the CPD is dominated by 14C-samples
taken from catchments smaller than 1000 km2 and therefore mainly
represents the sensitivity of small to medium sized catchments. In
contrast, the Upper Rhine has a catchment size of ~70 000 km2
suggesting a delayed response of the large Rhine River to the increased
human pressure since the Iron Age in Central Europe (Lang et al., 2003).
These results, therefore, support the hypotheses of the relative stability
of large fluvial systems as a consequence of their higher capacity to
buffer the effects of forcing and the longer residence time of sediment
within the system (Dearing and Jones, 2003; Hoffmann et al., 2007;
Lang et al., 2003; Métivier and Gaudemer, 1999; Richards, 2002;
Rommens et al., 2006; Walling, 2006). Compared to the Upper Rhine,
the even larger catchment sizes of the Lower Rhine (155 000 km2) and
the Rhine delta (185 000 km2) may have caused a stronger impact. This
9
fact may also explain the linear rather than the exponential increase in
the Lower Rhine and the Rhine delta compared to smaller catchments.
The delayed response of larger fluvial systems, however, is not
obvious in the depth/age-analysis (Fig. 3). The acceleration is observed
at all catchment sizes smaller than 10 000 km2. Taking the scenarios of
assumed sedimentation rates into account, this approach indicates a
much later start of accelerated floodplain deposition, than both the
CPD- and the floodplain storage approaches. The difference of
1500 years between the depth/age-analysis and the other methods
may still not be significant due to the very simple assumptions
underlying the sedimentation scenarios. For instance, the best fit of
the different scenarios in Fig. 3 changes depending on the maximum
(modern) sedimentation rate. Assuming a maximum sedimentation of
3.5 mm a− 1 yields an apparent start of accelerated sedimentation at 0
BC/AD, whereas a sedimentation rate of 6 mm a− 1 will best fit a
scenario that starts at 1000 AD (Fig. 6).
The maximum floodplain sedimentation rates of the depth/ageanalysis are well within the range of modern sedimentation rates in
Europe estimated based on 210Pb and 137Cs (Rumsby, 2000). At the
River Ouse (Yorkshire, UK), for example, Walling et al. (1998) estimated
Fig. 7. Comparison of 14C-based depth/age-sedimentation rates of A) the Yellow River (Shi et al., 2002), B) the Mississippi catchment (Knox, 2006) and C) the Rhine catchment (this study).
Please cite this article as: Hoffmann, T., et al., Trends and controls of Holocene floodplain sedimentation in the Rhine catchment, Catena (2008),
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overbank sedimentation rates ranging from 0.08 to 5.2 mm a− 1
(mean ≅ 1.6 mm a− 1) that corresponded to 39% of the suspended
sediment yield of the River Ouse. Floodplain sedimentation rates in
response to the fast and intense increase of agricultural disturbance in
the “New World” (USA and Australia) are generally higher than those
reported from the “Old World”. 137Cs-measurements on the Upper
Mississippi River resulted in larger values ranging from 4.4 mm a− 1 up
to 14.4 mm a− 1 with a mean of 12.5 mm a− 1 (Benedetti, 2003). These
values were compared to long-term mean values of 1.4 mm a− 1 at the
same locations. In the Lake Burragorang catchment (Australia)
sedimentation rates of up to 16.4 mm a− 1 were determined for the
period of European settlements in Australia (Rustomji and Pietsch,
2007). Pre-European impact rates vary between 0.06 mm a− 1 and
0.15 mm a− 1 and are a factor of 100 lower than during European
impact. The pre-European-impact rates in the Lake Burragorang
catchment are in the same order of magnitude as our estimates
based on 14C-ages in the Rhine catchment before 7000 years BP.
Comparing maximum sedimentation rates during the period of human
impact reveals considerably higher sedimentation rates in rivers of the
“New World”. Besides the natural setting with lower rainfall variability
the humid regions of Europe also experienced a more gradual
development and expansion of agricultural activities.
The importance of catchment size on the buffer capacity of
fluvial systems is also shown by the comparison of depth/age-analysis
of 14C-ages from the Rhine catchment with data of the Yellow River
(Shi et al., 2002) and the Mississippi River (Knox, 2006) (Fig. 7). The
results from the Upper Mississippi River confirm the importance of
catchment size. In this catchment human impacts result in strongly
increasing floodplain sedimentation in the smaller tributaries, while
the impact on the main trunk is less clear (Fig. 7B). While the
increasing trend of floodplain sedimentation of the tributaries of the
Mississippi is in general agreement with the data from the Rhine
catchment (Fig. 7C), there is a considerable difference concerning the
importance of catchment size. As shown in Fig. 3A the increase in
floodplain sedimentation in the Rhine catchment is independent on
the catchment scale. The differences between the Mississippi and the
Rhine may result from strong contrast in catchment sizes in the case of
the Mississippi. The ratio of catchment sizes at the Mississippi River
(trunk stream 160 000–180 000 km2 and tributaries 5–700 km2) is
very different to our study where catchment areas are more evenly
distributed and the majority of analyses originate from 1–1000 km2
large catchments (Table 1). While it is generally accepted that
increasing sedimentation in the Rhine catchment during the last
1600 years results from increasing agricultural activities at local
scales, climate impacts may also be a factor at the regional scale.
However, the evidence available to date is not unambiguous. In the
case of the Yellow River significant accelerated sedimentation rates
are shown despite its large catchment (752 000 km2). Xu (1998)
argues that the increased rates are caused by the direct impact of the
artificial levee constructions (starting already between 475 and 221 BC)
that reduce deposition space on the floodplain. Furthermore, the steep
topography and the large amounts of highly erodible sediments on the
Loess plateau also render the Yellow River highly sensitive to human
impact, resulting in a good correlation between sediment yield and
population density (Shi et al., 2002).
7. Conclusions
All three different techniques used to unravel trends in Holocene
floodplain sedimentation on large spatial scales show a strong recent
increase of floodplain sedimentation rates probably due to human
impact. The different spatial scales and temporal resolutions of the
applied methods result in different times for the onset of accelerated
sedimentation. With the floodplain storage approach accelerated
sedimentation is first detected between 1000 BC and 0 BC. A similar
picture is obtained from the frequency distribution analysis, with a
start of acceleration at 1300 BC. Compared to the floodplain storage
approach the frequency distribution analysis offers high temporal but
limited spatial resolution. Sedimentation rates derived from depth/
age-analysis show a contrasting pattern and accelerated sedimentation starts much later at about 500 AD. This is mainly related to the
simplification (e.g. linear sedimentation) in the underlying sedimentation scenarios that is necessary due to limited data availability. As
more data becomes available and databases are built up further, much
more detailed reconstructions of past sediment flux will be possible.
Based on the current dataset only the high temporal resolution
cumulative frequency distributions of 14C-ages display a climatic
impact on floodplain sedimentation. The floodplain storage
approaches and the depth/time-analysis of 14C-ages do not show
significant trends that can be directly linked to climate impacts.
The impact of catchment size on derived sedimentation rates is also
ambivalent. Floodplain sedimentation, however, did not start before
1300 BC after a major increase of soil erosion during the Bronze Age.
The magnitude of this increase is dependent on catchment size: the
floodplain storage analysis for which the corresponding catchment
sizes are 70–180 · 103 km2 show a smaller increase (factor 2.5–3) than
the depth/time-analysis with corresponding catchment sizes smaller
than 10³ km2 (factor 8–16). This pattern may still be significantly biased
as the depth/time-analysis is often based on single measurements.
In summary, the data on Holocene floodplain sedimentation rates
suggest only limited impacts of climate change and catchment size but
a strong human impact during the last 3000 years.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for
funding the study: “Modelling the Holocene sediment budget of
fluvial system” (DI414/15-2), which is part of the IGBP PAGES focus 5
activity LUCIFS (Land Use and Climate Impacts on Fluvial Systems
during the Period of Agriculture). We acknowledge Jürgen Wunderlich, Peter Houben and Rainer Dambeck (University of Frankurt),
Jochen Seidel (University of Freiburg) for stimulating discussions and
for providing data. We thank K. Gregory and T. Törnqvist for their
helpful comments on the manuscript.
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