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ABSTRACT
Studies of soil loss and sediment transport in periglacial areas often concentrate on either mass wasting or fluvial transport. Few studies discuss the interaction between the various processes in this environment. This study was made on a gelifluction slope in an alpine valley (Kärkevagge) in Swedish Lappland, and is an attempt to describe the interaction between gelifluction and surface wash and the transfer from mass wasting to fluvial transport.
Gerlach sediment traps were used to collect material transported by surface wash. The saturated overland flow, responsible for the bulk of erosion by water, is activated during the snowmelt. Compared with the actual transport in gelifluction on the same slope, the amount of material transported by surface wash is however diminutive.
The results indicate that there is a little transfer of sediments along the entire slope profile as more material seems to be relocated within the gelifluction system then transported away. The slope can be divided in several subsystems acting more or less individually, connected only by catastrophic events such as avalaches and mudflows transporting material to the base of the slope.
The actual transfer from gelifluction to fluvial transport is caused either by surface erosion in rills eroding the collapsing gelifluction lobes or by subsurface erosion.
