Seasonal patterns of suspended sediment transport in an abandoned farmland catchment in the Central Spanish Pyrenees

The suspended sediment response of a small catchment subjected to farmland abandonment and subsequent plant recolonization was studied in relation to its hydrological functioning. The analysis of data over a seven-year period demonstrated that suspended sediment yield was greatly influenced by the occurrence of intense, low-frequency events. Greater amounts of suspended sediment were exported during spring, when the catchment was hydrologically more active. Rainfall intensity and baseflow at the start of a flood event had a strong influence on the sediment response, Suggesting that several hydrological processes were active within the catchment. SSC (suspended sediment concentration)-Q hysteretic loop analysis at the event scale aided understanding of the sedimentological and hydrological behaviour of the catchment. During the study period the SSC-Q loops showed a high degree of seasonality and two main patterns strongly related to catchment wetness were distinguished. When the catchment was dry (mainly during summer and the beginning of autumn) the predominant process was infiltration excess runoff over sparsely vegetated areas close to the main channel. Under these conditions, floods exhibited a counter-clockwise hysteretic loop and were characterized by a small streamflow response, short duration and high SSC. Under wet conditions (mainly during winter and spring), saturation excess runoff was increasingly dominant over vegetated areas. Under these conditions, floods exhibited a clockwise hysteretic loop, and were characterized by a larger streamflow response, longer duration and higher suspended sediment yield. The lower SSC during the falling stage of the hydrograph is likely to be clue to dilution effects related to the Contribution of clean water resulting from enlargement of the saturated areas, together with an increase in the baseflow discharge. Copyright (c) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.