A review of studies on the sediment fingerprinting in Iran

Sediment fingerprinting of water sediments is a suitable method to determine the share of resources in sediment production and as an erosion and sedimentation technique to identify the origin and movements of sediments in the river and relative estimation of soil erosion, which has increased in recent decades. A comprehensive review of the research background in the field of soil and sediment erosion, hybrid models, different tracers and sampling methods has been performed in various Iranian-scale origin studies. The available data were compared in order to achieve a unified view and provide effective tracers in the origin and determination of the share of sediment sources in sediment production in Iran's watersheds. The results showed that the source studies have been started since 2008 with the help of geochemical, radionuclide, trace elements, mineralogy, magnetic properties and enzymes. Most studies focus on the division of resources into process categories (uses and erosion). In the division of resources according to location (sub-basins), sub-basins close to the output had the largest relative share of sediment production. In sediment sampling, most studies have been based on the measurement of sediment at the backbone or the sample of the canal bed. Sampling volume was divided into three general categories and if granulometry of the sample is not considered in the research, a smaller sample size of 0.5-1 kg is preferred. Of all the studies, two were conducted at the local spatial scale (10 Km2) and the other at the medium spatial scale (10 to 10,000 Km2) and no research was conducted at the regional scale (greater than 10,000 Km2). The use of enzymes has been limited, due to the high cost and chemicals. The use of tracers such as radioactive elements is preferred due to its stability and heavy metals and rare elements due to lack of reaction and concentration changes. In order to reduce costs and analyze the results accurately, using laboratory analysis of sediment samples, the necessary detectors for sediment fingerprinting should be selected and then the concentration of the same detectors in sediment sources should be measured.