Abstract
Coseismic landslides and subsequent mobilization of sediment greatly aggravated the landscape evolution and river sedimentation after the Wenchuan earthquake. The debris-flow alluvial fan and river morphological index was combined to describe quantitatively the effects of debris-flow sediment on the river characteristics in Longmen Mountains. The section of the Min River from the urban area of the Wenchuan county to the epicenter, the Yingxiu town in this county, was selected as the study area. We identified 27 river-blocking debris-flows (5 partial-, 7 semi-, 7 over semi-, and 5 fully-blocking degrees) in the study area via remote sensing interpretation and field survey. Based on this, the response of river longitudinal profile and curvature to debris-flow sediment was qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. The results show that the channel gradient has decreased due to debris-flow aggradation, while two marked peaks in the river steepness index (ksn, represents the relative steepness degree of the channel) changed from 585 m0.9 to 732 m0.9 in zone 1, from 362 m0.9 to 513 m0.9 in zone 2. Moreover, the main channel has undergone substantial lateral migration with channel width decreased and river curvature increased. The temporal and spatial variation between river morphological characteristics and debris-flow sediments in short-term provides insights into the internal dynamic role of mass wasting processes in river morphology, which could be served as useful information for natural hazards management to prevent the river from being blocked by episodically debris flows after the earthquake.
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Acknowledgements
This work has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42001002), the Key Laboratory of Mountain Hazards and Earth Surface Processes, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KLMHESP-20-02), the Key Programs of Science and Technology Research Plan, Hubei Provincial Department of Education (Grant No. D20201205), Power China Science and Technology Projects (Grant No. DJ-ZDXM-2016-04). All the DEM data are available through the ASF Data Research at the following URL: https://search.asf.alaska.edu/#/?tdsourcetag=s_pctim_aiomsg. We would like to thank Prof. Kaiheng HU in the guidance and Dr. Wen JIN for taking the UAV orthography images.
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Hu, Xd., Zhou, Lq., Liu, Wm. et al. Geomorphic effect of debris-flow sediments on the Min River, Wenchuan Earthquake region, western China. J. Mt. Sci. 18, 2427–2440 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-021-6816-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-021-6816-1