Integrating Quantitative Provanance Analysis and Geomorphology to Unveil Controls on Sediment Generation and Flux in Hillslope Catchments

Quantitative Provenance Analysis (QPA) and Geomorphology provide complementary yet traditionally decoupled insights into sediment generation. QPA reconstructs lithological sources from detrital compositions, while geomorphology quantifies sediment erosion, transport pathways and morphometric controls. Their integration defines Sediment Generation as an emerging process-based discipline that seeks to quantify how sediments with specific compositional and textural properties are produced from source rocks under variable tectonic, climatic and morphodynamic conditions.

Studies of tectonically active catchments in Colombia and southern Italy reveal that sediment production and flux is nonlineraly controlled by both lithological properties, such as erodibility and textural inheritance, and morphometric parameters like slope, structural connectivity and sediment routing potential. Weathering rates and both steady-state and episodic erosional processes like landsliding and rock falls, controlled by hillslope morphology, directly affect sediment compositions including bulk geochemistry, clay mineralogy and geochemistry, sand petrography and detrital geochronology.

Numerical integration of morphometric parameters and derived indices, such as the index of connectivity and global erodibility index, with basic sediment generation models based on endmember mixing enables the quantification of lithological and morphometric controls. The relative contributions of heterogeneous parent rocks to sand, silt and clay grain sizes are primarily governed by lithological characteristics. However, these controls may be overridden by morphometric features and local drainage configuration.

The interdisciplinary QPA-geomorphology approach permits high-resolution sediment budgets, advances predictive sediment modeling, and redefines our understanding of anthropogenic disruptions such as deforestation and hydroelectric damming. It further offers a critical advancement for unraveling source-to-sink dynamics in both recent and ancient sedimentary systems.