A review of the measurement of sediment yield in different scales

Abstract

The present review paper has the objective of presenting and briefly discussing the state-of-the-art papers on sediment yield (SY) measurement. About 80 publications are referred to, representing all continents, and more than 30 countries. It is observed that SY measurement technique is a much stronger function of temporal than of spatial resolution. Annual average SY data of 364 catchments are summarized. Global data presents no trend concerning catchment area and the same behavior is observed for the continents, except for Africa, which presents a consistent decrease of SY with increasing area. A graphical representation of the spatial and temporal applicability of the different SY measurement techniques is shown.