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Geological Society, London, Special Publications; 1999; v. 163; p. 41-59;
DOI: 10.1144/GSL.SP.1999.163.01.04
© 1999 Geological Society of London

Contemporary Floodplain Process

Using fallout radionuclides in investigations of contemporary overbank sedimentation on the floodplains of British rivers

D. E. Walling

Department of Geography, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4RJ, UK

Increased interest in the functioning of river floodplains has generated the need for more information on rates and patterns of contemporary overbank sedimentation. Traditional approaches to documenting rates of overbank sedimentation on floodplains face many practical difficulties, but recent advances in the application of the fallout radionuclides 137Cs and unsupported 210Pb afford greatly increased potential for assembling such information. The potential for using these two radionuclides to investigate contemporary overbank sedimentation is demonstrated by considering examples drawn from recent work undertaken by the author and his co-workers on the floodplains of British rivers. These examples are used to illustrate (1) establishment of recent chronologies for sediment cores collected from river floodplains, (2) documentation of the spatial pattern of overbank sedimentation rates, (3) quantification of conveyance losses associated with overbank sedimentation, and (4) investigation of changing rates of overbank sedimentation over the past 100 years.