Slope Basis Deposits Linked to Long-Term Land Use in NE-Germany

In the absence of long-term records of soil erosion by land use change in the moraine landscape, NE-Germany, slope basis deposits offer considerable potential for reconstructing the changing soil erosion rates at a catena scale in response to the environmental change. A pit with a length of 61m and an average depth of 1.5 to 3m was opened along the catena, located 60km east of Berlin, NE Germany. The 137 Cs and 210 Pb ex dating in conjunction with soil profile analysis methods were used to define a chronology for the accumulated soil materials at slope basis of the catena. The temporal patterns of sediment accumulation rates at study catena were subdivided into five time periods. The deposited depth of sediments in the slope basis has increased eight to ten - fold during the periods between 1954 and 1986 compared to the deposit depth over the past 600 years. Over the last 100 years, deposited depth at the slope basis of the catena increased from 0.49 cm/yr to 1.04 cm/yr and then decreased to 0.45 cm/yr. Increase in sedimentation rate in the time period from 1897 to 1986 corresponded to intensive agricultural tillage operations whereas a decrease in sedimentation after 1986 corresponded to a land use change from arable land to grassland of the study catena.