THE SEDIMENT BUDGET OF THE LILLOOET RIVER BASIN, BRITISH COLUMBIA

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Abstract
The sediment and solute budget of the Lillooet River basin in British Columbia (3,150 km2) is developed to exemplify a methodology that has the potential to unify geomorphological research. Sediment and solute transport processes in Holocene time are identified and quantified. The budget is demonstrated to be severely unbalanced. Historical events and transient response to those events are implicated. A minimum of four time scales of integration—geological, Pleistocene, Holocene and contemporary—are proposed, and the role and status of the components of the sediment budget are examined. Storage sites and solute sinks, linkages among sediment and solute transport processes, the role of biotic factors, weathering, stratigraphic evidence, and the hydrologic balance are individually reviewed. Spatial scale considerations provide a way of interpreting and aggregating the above complex factors. In general, there appears to be no spatial scale at which sediment and solute supply from the slopes is in balance with storage change and yield over specified time periods. [Key words: sediment budget; sediment and solute transfers; glacierized, tectonically active mountain basin; Lillooet River, British Columbia.]