The sediment budget of a highly dynamic mesoscale catchment: The River Isلbena

The paper presents the sediment budget of the Isábena basin, a highly dynamic 445-km2 catchment located in the Central Pyrenees that is patched by highly erodible areas (i.e., badlands). The budget for the period 2007–2009 is constructed following a methodology that allows the interpolation of intermittent measurements of suspended sediment concentrations and enables a subsequent calculation of sediment loads. Data allow specification of the contribution of each subbasin to the water and sediment yield in the catchment outlet. Mean annual sediment load was 235,000 t y− 1. Specific sediment yield reached 2000 t km− 2 y− 1, a value that indicates very high sedimentary activity, especially in the case of Villacarli and Lascuarre subcatchments, were most badlands are located. The specific sediment yield obtained for the entire Isábena is 527 t km− 2 y− 1, a high value for such a mesoscale basin. Results show that a small part of the area (i.e., 1%) controls most of the catchmentʹs gross sediment contribution. Sediment delivery ratio (ratio between sediment input from primary sources and basin export) has been estimated at around 90%, while in-channel storage represents the 5% of the annual load on average. The high connectivity between sediment sources (i.e., badlands) and transfer paths (i.e., streamcourses) exacerbates the influence of the local sediment production on the catchmentʹs sediment yield, a quite unusual fact for a basin of this scale.