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Earth’s sediment cycle during the Anthropocene

  • Review Article
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Abstract

The global sediment cycle is a fundamental feature of the Earth system, balancing competing factors such as orogeny, physical–chemical erosion and human action. In this Review, values of the magnitudes of several sources and sinks within the cycle are suggested, although the record remains fragmented with uncertainties. Between 1950 and 2010, humans have transformed the mobilization, transport and sequestration of sediment, to the point where human action now dominates these fluxes at the global scale. Human activities have increased fluvial sediment delivery by 215% while simultaneously decreasing the amount of fluvial sediment that reaches the ocean by 49%, and societal consumption of sediment over the same period has increased by more than 2,500%. Global warming is also substantially affecting the global sediment cycle through temperature impacts (sediment production and transport, sea ice cover, glacial ice ablation and loss of permafrost), precipitation changes, desertification and wind intensities, forest fire extent and intensity, and acceleration of sea-level rise. With progressive improvements in global digital datasets and modelling, we should be able to obtain a comprehensive picture of the impacts of human activities and climate warming.

Key points

  • Sediment production (supply) from anthropogenic soil erosion, construction activities, mineral mining, aggregate mining, and sand and gravel mining from coasts and rivers, has increased by about 467% between 1950 and 2010.

  • Sediment consumption in the Anthropocene, including from reservoir sequestration, highway development and coal and concrete consumption, has increased by about 2,550% between 1950 and 2010.

  • Transport of sediment from land to the coastal ocean (via rivers, wind, coastal erosion, and ice loss) has decreased by 23% between 1950 and 2010, whereas transport of fluvial particulates including organic carbon has decreased by 49% over the same period; offsets include increases in sediment delivery by icebergs and glacial melt.

  • If it were not for sequestration of sediment behind dams, global rivers would have increased their particulate loads by 212% between 1950 and 2010.

  • Anthropocene impacts on the marine sedimentary environment remain poorly characterized but, on the basis of the resuspension of seafloor sediment from trawling, dredging and land reclamation, anthropogenic transport seems to have increased by 780% between 1950 and 2010.

  • The Earth’s present Anthropocene sediment load (net land-to-sea sediment delivery and anthropogenic sediment production) exceeds 300 billion tons (Gt) per year, a mass flux that includes a small (<6%) contribution from natural processes.

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Fig. 1: Examples of fluvial sediment loads in the Holocene and Anthropocene.
Fig. 2: Examples of geological categories of sediment delivery to the global ocean.
Fig. 3: Human action dominates the global sediment budget.
Fig. 4: Predicted impact of climate warming on fluvial sediment budgets.
Fig. 5: The increasing impact of human action on sediment fluxes and loads.

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Acknowledgements

This work is the result of efforts by the Anthropocene Working Group, of which J.S. and Y.S. are members. The authors acknowledge the insights provided by J. D. Milliman, J. Zalasiewicz and C. Waters. H.W. is funded by the National Key R&D Program of China, Ministry of Science and Technology (grant no. 2016YFA0600903).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INSTAAR and CSDMS, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Jaia Syvitski & Irina Overeem

  2. Dept. Earth Sciences, EAFIT University, Medellín, Colombia

    Juan Restrepo Ángel

  3. Estuary Research Center, Shimane University, Matsue, Japan

    Yoshiki Saito

  4. Geological Survey of Japan, AIST, Tsukuba, Japan

    Yoshiki Saito

  5. Environmental Sciences Initiative, Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center, New York, USA

    Charles J. Vörösmarty

  6. College of Marine Geosciences, Key Laboratory of Submarine Geosciences and Prospecting Technology, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China

    Houjie Wang

  7. Institute for Climate Change and Adaptation, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

    Daniel Olago

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Contributions

All authors developed and contributed to drafts of the text and figures. The concept for this Review was designed by J.S., J.R.A., Y.S., H.W. and D.O. All authors contributed to the manuscript contents, including final review.

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Glossary

Aeolian transport

Movement of detrital particles from one place to another by wind, including over mountain tops.

Endorheic

River systems that empty into receiving waters located on the continental landmass.

Exorheic

River systems that, in a particular climate, empty into coastal receiving waters.

Dissolved load

(Qd). Portion of a stream’s total sediment load derived from biogeochemical weathering of rock and soil and carried in solution by a landscape’s drainage system.

Denudation rate

Sum of all processes that contribute to the lowering of Earth’s terrestrial surface, including erosion.

Substrate

A layer of earth material such as soil, clay, silt, sand or gravel.

Sediment yield

(Y). The transport load normalized to drainage area and can include both the dissolved and the particulate load in units of mass per area per unit time (for example t/km2 per year or g/cm2 per year).

Suspended load

(Qs). Finer particles held in suspension by fluid turbulence or colloidal suspension. Most sediment enters the coastal ocean in suspension. Qs = Qsbm + Qw. where Qsbm refers to bed-material particles occasionally transported in suspension and is comprised of the coarser suspended grains, and Qw refers to the transport mass that is rarely in contact with the bed, and largely washes through the drainage network to the coastal ocean. In aeolian transport, these dust particles can sometimes reach high into the troposphere.

Clinoform

Basinward-sloping sedimentary deposit with sigmoidal geometry, generated by lateral accretion of sediment in standing waters, and consisting of topset, foreset and bottomset sediment beds.

El Niño–Southern Oscillation

(ENSO). A fluctuation every 2–7 years in sea surface temperature (El Niño or its opposite La Nina) and the air pressure of the overlying atmosphere across the equatorial Pacific Ocean (Southern Oscillation); El Niño or its opposite (La Niña) sufficiently modify the general flow of the atmosphere to affect normal weather patterns in many parts of the world.

Southern Oscillation Index

(SOI). A standardized index based on the observed sea level pressure differences between Tahiti and Darwin, Australia, and is a measure of the large-scale fluctuations in air pressure occurring between the western and eastern tropical Pacific (the area of the Southern Oscillation) during El Niño and La Niña episodes.

Oceanic Niño Index

(ONI). NOAA’s primary indicator for monitoring El Niño and La Niña, which are opposite phases of the ENSO climate pattern; El Niño conditions prevail when ONI ≥ 0.5, indicating that the east-central tropical Pacific is much warmer than usual, and La Niña conditions exist when ONI ≤ –0.5, indicating that the region is cooler than usual.

Meghalayan Age

The most recent age of the Holocene Epoch, extending from 4,250 years before the year 2000 to the present. Also known as the late Holocene.

Greenlandian Age

The earliest age of the Holocene Epoch, extending from 11,700 years to 8,236 years before the year 2000. Also known as the early Holocene. The Northgrippian Age (the middle age of the Holocene Epoch and thus also known as the middle Holocene) extends from 8,236 years to 4,250 years before the year 2000.

Bedload

(Qb). Grains rolling, sliding or bouncing along a river channel or desert surface. Bedload dominates river transport in mountain regions or other steeper regions of the landscape that are being eroded.

Particulate load

(Qp). Detrital particles in transit, transported by water or wind as bedload (Qb) and suspended load (Qs), where Qp = Qb + Qs.

Hydraulic gradient

The change in the hydraulic head over a distance along the direction of flow path. The hydraulic gradient represents the driving force that causes water to flow in the direction of maximum decreasing total head.

Bed material load

(Qbm). Sediment grains that line the bed of a river or desert surface and with sufficient flow speed can be transported with the current, and consists of bedload and suspended bed material grains. Qbm = Qb + Qsbm

Climate normal

A 30-year interval designed to capture the variability in the climate system at a given location.

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Syvitski, J., Ángel, J.R., Saito, Y. et al. Earth’s sediment cycle during the Anthropocene. Nat Rev Earth Environ 3, 179–196 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-021-00253-w

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