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Abstract: Drainage network extension in semi‐arid rangelands has contributed to a large increase in the amount of fine sediment delivered to the coastal lagoon of the Great Barrier Reef, but gully erosion rates and dynamics are poorly understood. This study monitored annual erosion, deposition and vegetation cover in six gullies for 13 years, in granite‐derived soils of the tropical Burdekin River basin. We also monitored a further 11 gullies in three nearby catchments for 4 years to investigate the effects of grazing intensity. Under livestock grazing, the long‐term fine sediment yield from the planform area of gullies was 6.1 t ha‐1 yr‐1. This was 7.3 times the catchment sediment yield, indicating that gullies were erosion hotspots within the catchment. It was estimated that gully erosion supplied between 29 and 44% of catchment sediment yield from 4.5% of catchment area, of which 85% was derived from gully wall erosion. Under long‐term livestock exclusion gully sediment yields were 77% lower than those of grazed gullies due to smaller gully extent, and lower erosion rates especially on gully walls. Gully wall erosion will continue to be a major landscape sediment source that is sensitive to grazing pressure, long after gully length and depth have stabilised. Wall erosion was generally lower at higher levels of wall vegetation cover, suggesting that yield could be reduced by increasing cover. Annual variations in gully head erosion and net sediment yield were strongly dependent on annual rainfall and runoff, suggesting that sediment yield would also be reduced if surface runoff could be reduced. Deposition occurred in the downstream valley segments of most gullies. This study concludes that reducing livestock grazing pressure within and around gullies in hillslope drainage lines is a primary method of gully erosion control, which could deliver substantial reductions in sediment yield. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Modification of terrestrial sediment fluxes can result in increased sedimentation and turbidity in receiving waters, with detrimental impacts on coral reef ecosystems. Preventing anthropogenic sediment reaching coral reefs requires a better understanding of the specific characteristics, sources and processes generating the anthropogenic sediment, so that effective watershed management strategies can be implemented. Here, we review and synthesise research on measured runoff, sediment erosion and sediment delivery from watersheds to near-shore marine areas, with a strong focus on the Burdekin watershed in the Great Barrier Reef region, Australia. We first investigate the characteristics of sediment that pose the greatest risk to coral reef ecosystems. Next we track this sediment back from the marine system into the watershed to determine the storage zones, source areas and processes responsible for sediment generation and run-off. The review determined that only a small proportion of the sediment that has been eroded from the watershed makes it to the mid and outer reefs. The sediment transported >1km offshore is generally the clay to fine silt (<4–16μm) fraction, yet there is considerable potential for other terrestrially derived sediment fractions (<63μm) to be stored in the near-shore zone and remobilised during wind and tide driven re-suspension. The specific source of the fine clay sediments is still under investigation; however, the Bowen, Upper Burdekin and Lower Burdekin sub-watersheds appear to be the dominant source of the clay and fine silt fractions. Sub-surface erosion is the dominant process responsible for the fine sediment exported from these watersheds in recent times, although further work on the particle size of this material is required. Maintaining average minimum ground cover >75% will likely be required to reduce runoff and prevent sub-soil erosion; however, it is not known whether ground cover management alone will reduce sediment supply to ecologically acceptable levels. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: Poor land condition resulting from unsustainable grazing practices can reduce enterprise profitability and increase water, sediment and associated nutrient runoff from properties and catchments. This paper presents the results of a 6year field study that used a series of hillslope flume experiments to evaluate the impact of improved grazing land management (GLM) on hillslope runoff and sediment yields. The study was carried out on a commercial grazing property in a catchment draining to the Burdekin River in northern Australia. During this study average ground cover on hillslopes increased from ∼35% to ∼75%, although average biomass and litter levels are still relatively low for this landscape type (∼60 increasing to 1100kg of dry matter per hectare). Pasture recovery was greatest on the upper and middle parts of hillslopes. Areas that did not respond to the improved grazing management had <10% cover and were on the lower slopes associated with the location of sodic soil and the initiation of gullies. Comparison of ground cover changes and soil conditions with adjacent properties suggest that grazing management, and not just improved rainfall conditions, were responsible for the improvements in ground cover in this study. The ground cover improvements resulted in progressively lower runoff coefficients for the first event in each wet season, however, runoff coefficients were not reduced at the annual time scale. The hillslope annual sediment yields declined by ∼70% on two out of three hillslopes, although where bare patches (with <10% cover) were connected to gullies and streams, annual sediment yields increased in response to higher rainfall in latter years of the study. It appears that bare patches are the primary source areas for both runoff and erosion on these hillslopes. Achieving further reductions in runoff and erosion in these landscapes may require management practices that improve ground cover and biomass in bare areas, particularly when they are located adjacent to concentrated drainage lines. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents the results of a three year field study which examines the bank erosion and channel change on the Daintree River in Australia. It provides information on the three different methods which are employed in the study including the erosion pins, bench-marked cross-sections, and the historical aerial photos. The first method is used to asses the influence of riparian vegetation on bank erosion while the second method is used to evaluate annual changes in channel width. Moreover, the third method is used to place the short term data into a longer temporal perspective of channel change.

Understanding of the pre-development, baseline denudation rates that deliver sediment to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) has been elusive. Cosmogenic 10Be in sediment is a useful integrator of denudation rates and sediment yields averaged over large spatial and temporal scales. This study presents 10Be data from 71 sites across 11 catchments draining to the GBR: representing 80% of the GBR catchment area and provide background sediment yields for the region. Modern, short-term, sediment yields derived from suspended load concentrations are compared to the 10Be data to calculate an Accelerated Erosion Factor (AEF) that highlights denudation "hot-spots" where sediment yields have increased over the long-term background values. The AEF results show that 58% basins have higher modern sediment yields than long-term yields. The AEF is considered a useful approach to help prioritise on-ground investments in remediation and the additional measured empirical data in this paper will help support future predictive models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Identifying how agricultural practices can be changed to reduce sediment loss requires knowledge of the erosion processes and spatial areas contributing to end of catchment sediment loads. The Burdekin River basin in northeast Australia is a priority for such knowledge because of its large size (130,000km2), ongoing public investment in changing agricultural practices, and because sediment exports are known to affect the health of a significant aquatic ecosystem, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). This study applied sediment tracing techniques within the Burdekin River basin to identify the contributions of surface versus subsurface soil, and spatial areas to fine sediment export. Tracer properties included fallout radionuclides and geochemistry. The contributions of each sediment source to river sediment were identified with 95% confidence intervals using a Monte-Carlo numerical mixing model. Between 77% and 89% of fine sediment loss in the study area was derived from subsurface soil sources. High-resolution monitoring of river suspended sediment concentrations indicated that sediment sources were in close proximity to the drainage network, since concentrations were higher on the rising limb than the falling limb of large hydrographs. Gully erosion is likely to be the dominant subsurface soil erosion process, although channel bank erosion and hillslope rilling cannot be discounted. The results contrast with previous sediment budget spatial modelling, which predicted that hillslope erosion was the dominant sediment source in the area, thus demonstrating the need to independently verify modelling predictions where input datasets are poor. The contribution of surface soil to river sediment was generally similar between catchments which were currently grazed and two catchments where livestock grazing ceased 7 years ago. Concurrent increases in vegetation cover in the non-grazed catchments indicate that surface erosion rates had declined, suggesting that subsurface soil erosion rates had also declined by a similar amount. The estimated contributions of spatial source areas within the large study catchments had narrower confidence intervals when source areas were defined using sediment from geologically distinct river tributaries, rather than using soil sampled from geological units in the catchment, since tributary sediment had less-variable geochemistry than catchment soil. Programs to reduce fine sediment losses from the Burdekin River basin should primarily focus on reducing sub-surface soil erosion proximal to the basin's drainage network. Understanding the biophysical processes of pollutant generation is important to help guide on-ground activities to improve water quality. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]