Fingerprinting suspended sediment sources in a large urban river system

Very few studies have attempted to quantify the sources of suspended sediment transported in urban river systems. In this study, statistically verified composite fingerprints and a multivariate mixing model have been used to identify the main sources of the suspended sediment transported by the River Aire and its main tributary, the River Calder. Because of the polluted nature of the Aire/Calder catchment and its effect on fingerprint property concentrations, source tracing was undertaken separately for the upper and lower reaches. The mean contributions from individual source types (i.e. surface materials from woodland, uncultivated and cultivated areas, channel bank material, road dust and solids from sewage treatment works) varied between the upper and lower reaches of the rivers, reflecting the change in land use from primarily pasture and moorland in the upper reaches to mainly urban areas (with some cultivated land) in the lower reaches. The suspended sediment in the upper reaches of the River Aire originates largely from channel bank sources (43-84%) and from uncultivated topsoil (16-57%). In the lower reaches of the Aire/Calder system, local sources of cultivated topsoil contribute 20-45% of the suspended sediment load and there is a significant contribution from urban sources, such as road dust (19-22%) and solids from sewage treatment works (14-18%). In the upper reaches, the proportion of sediment derived from each of the two main geological areas corresponds broadly to the proportion of the catchment occupied by each geological area. The relative contribution from the Rivers Aire and Calder to the suspended sediment load transported below the confluence demonstrates that most of the sediment is derived from the River Calder.