Sediment Response to Deforestation in the Amazon River Basin

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dc.contributorMagliocca, Nicholas
dc.contributorGardner, John
dc.contributor.advisorCohen, Sagy
dc.contributor.authorNarayanan, Anuska
dc.contributor.otherUniversity of Alabama Tuscaloosa
dc.date.accessioned2022-09-28T14:55:40Z
dc.date.available2022-09-28T14:55:40Z
dc.date.issued2022
dc.descriptionElectronic Thesis or Dissertationen_US
dc.description.abstractThe Amazon River Basin is the largest river basin in the world (6,300,000 km2) and serves as a home to approximately 26 million people across the South American continent. Renowned for its biodiversity, the Amazon River Basin is home almost 50,000 vascular plant species, 2,000 species of freshwater fishes, and was once one of the Earth's largest carbon sinks. Despite its anthropogenic and ecological importance, the Amazon experiences thousands of kilometers of deforestation annually with recent rates increasing to levels unseen since the late 2000s. These increased rates of deforestation within the basin have led to changes in sediment concentration within its river systems, affecting both the ecological balance and freshwater availability within the system. Furthermore, sediment plays an important role in river channel morphology and landscape development, effectively influencing the future topography of the basin. Therefore, it is important to closely examine the relationship between deforestation and suspended sediment in order to characterize the extent of influence anthropogenic activities, such as deforestation, have on rivers. In this study, I analyze the impact of deforestation from 2001 to 2020 on suspended sediment throughout the Amazon River Basin. These impacts are studied by quantifying the spatiotemporal relationships between observed suspended sediment and changes in land cover over time. In the southeast region of the Amazon, where deforestation rates are high, I observed strong correlations between deforestation and total suspended solids concentration. Basin wide, I determined that 26% of the temporal variability in sediment is attributed to deforestation. Sub-basins subject to large amounts of deforestation during the study period were shown to have sediment spatial dynamics more heavily influenced by deforestation than their more pristine counterparts. Further, at local scales, large amounts of deforestation were observed to be associated with increases in total suspended solids. The results of these analyses reveal that large scale deforestation of the Amazon during the 2001-2020 period may have led to significant changes in sediment dynamics predominantly in the eastern portion of the basin. These findings suggest severe implications for future sediment dynamics across the Amazon if deforestation is to further expand into the basin.en_US
dc.format.mediumelectronic
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.otherhttp://purl.lib.ua.edu/186571
dc.identifier.otheru0015_0000001_0004530
dc.identifier.otherNarayanan_alatus_0004M_14912
dc.identifier.urihttps://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/9557
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Alabama Libraries
dc.relation.hasversionborn digital
dc.relation.ispartofThe University of Alabama Electronic Theses and Dissertations
dc.relation.ispartofThe University of Alabama Libraries Digital Collections
dc.rightsAll rights reserved by the author unless otherwise indicated.en_US
dc.subjectAmazon
dc.subjectAmazon River Basin
dc.subjectDeforestation
dc.subjectLULC
dc.subjectSediment
dc.subjectTropics
dc.titleSediment Response to Deforestation in the Amazon River Basinen_US
dc.typethesis
dc.typetext
etdms.degree.departmentUniversity of Alabama. Department of Geography
etdms.degree.disciplineGeography
etdms.degree.grantorThe University of Alabama
etdms.degree.levelmaster's
etdms.degree.nameM.S.
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