A sediment fingerprinting approach to understand the geomorphic coupling in an eastern Mediterranean mountainous river catchment

article i nfo Article history: To understand the response of a river to anthropogenic disturbance, knowledge of the links between erosion, sed- iment deposition, and sediment export iscrucial.Therefore, starting from field observations and connectivity prox- ies, a sediment fingerprinting approach using geochemical tracers was used to elucidate the subrecent sediment dynamics in the 264-km 2 Bugduz River catchment in SW Turkey. A topography-based connectivity index was used as a proxy for hillslope-channel coupling and stream power estimations as a proxy for the within-channel connectivity. Quantitative provenance information providesa link between potential sediment sources and the de- rived sediment currently stored within the fluvial system. Provenance signals from both contemporary river bed sediments (n = 144) and subrecent floodplain deposits (n =2 8) provide more insight into the coupling of the hillslopes to the river channel and the coupling within the river channel itself. Furthermore, comparing the prov- enance signal with the areal extent of potential sediment sources upstream in the form of enrichment ratios sheds light upon the variation of the erodibility of the sources andthe connectivity within the catchment. Results indicate that the valleygradient exerts an important control on the spatial variability of geomorphic coupling in the Bugduz catchment. Furthermore, different sediment sources (lithologies) show distinct sediment production rates. In ad- dition to the observed spatial variability, coupling relations are characterized by an important seasonal variation, indicated by variable contributions of local and more distant sediment sources.