Fluvial transport in the deglaciated Antarctic catchment – Bohemian Stream, James Ross Island

ABSTRACT

With the ongoing climate change and the prolongation of the summer melting season and increasing air temperature that this entails, fluvial transport is likely to become a more important process shaping the deglaciated areas of Antarctica. Quantification of suspended sediment transport in the deglaciated catchment of the Bohemian Stream is presented in this study. It was shown that a large amount of fine-grained material is being transported even in the relatively small catchment during the short period of the Antarctic summer. The average calculated suspended sediment concentration during the 2018 austral summer reached 274.6 mg l⁻¹, which corresponded to an average suspended sediment load of 3662 kg day⁻¹ and suspended sediment yield of 68 t km⁻² year⁻¹ when considering the flow season to be approximately 4 months per year. Such values are considerably higher than those reported from continental Antarctica; however, they are lower compared to most of the Arctic catchments.

KEYWORDS:

• Suspended sediment transport
• fluvial processes
• Antarctica

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the project of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (grant number LM2015078) and Czech Science Foundation project GC20-20240S. The samples were processed in the laboratory of the Johann Gregor Mendel station. The staff of the JGM station is acknowledged for their help as well. Thanks to Steve Riley for language corrections.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the project of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic [grant number LM2015078] and Czech Science Foundation project GC20-20240S.

Notes on contributors

Jan Kavan

Jan Kavan works at the Department of Geography (Polar–Geo Lab), Masaryk University in Brno (Czechia). His main research interests are the environmental changes in polar regions associated especially with glaciers, hydrological cycle and sediment budget. He is involved in different research topics in the region of Antarctic Peninsula, Svalbard or Iceland.