Modern Denudation in the Mountains and Its Contribution to the Global Land Denudation
https://doi.org/10.31857/S2587556621010052
Abstract
Increased attention to the quantitative assessment of the modern denudation of mountainous territories is due to the significance of the relief transformation within these territories and the key role of the material formed in the process of denudation of the mountains in the total volume of sediments transferred from land to the World Ocean. Significant progress in, first of all, remote sensing techniques for studying the rates of individual exogenous processes and denudation in general, which has occurred over the past decade, contributed to the significant quantitative data increase related to the dynamics of relief transformation. This was enabled by two factors: a significant increase in the accuracy of digital elevation models created using remote sensing methods and the simplification of the processing of the data obtained. The article summarizes the published results and systematizes the methods for studying modern land denudation. It is shown that the combined usage of a set of direct observation methods and remote sensing methods allows the most detailed characterization of space-time changes in the relief at various scales of the studies. About 52% of land denudation products are formed on slopes with inclinations >15%. For the remaining territories in the mountains, the rates of denudation are determined by a different combination of a set of factors: seismotectonic activity, meteorological characteristics, lithology, and anthropogenic load. The maximum cumulative effect of these factors is achieved in the basins of small rivers. It is due to the optimal combination of the above factors that slightly less than one third (6.8 billion tons) of the total volume of sediment supplied from land to the world ocean is formed due to the sediment yield of small and medium-sized rivers of the western sector of the Ring of Fire of the Pacific Ocean.
Supporting agencies: The section devoted to the methods was prepared within the framework of the state-ordered research theme no. 0148-2019-0005 (AAAA-A19-119021990091-4). Work on the other sections was carried out within the framework of the Russian Science Foundation project no. 19-17-00181 “Quantitative Assessment of the Slope Sediment Flux and Its Changes in the Holocene for the Caucasus Mountain Rivers”
About the Authors
A. M. Grachev
Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Moscow
V. N. Golosov
Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences; Lomonosov Moscow State University
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Faculty of Geography Lomonosov MSU
Moscow
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For citations:
Grachev A.M., Golosov V.N. Modern Denudation in the Mountains and Its Contribution to the Global Land Denudation. Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk. Seriya Geograficheskaya. 2021;85(1):49-58. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31857/S2587556621010052
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