Determining contribution of different landuse of sand dunes sediments using fingerpriting

Recognition of origin of sand dunes is very important in wind erosion control projects. Because of many problems associated with traditional procedures for identifying sediment sources, fingerprinting techniques, based on physical, chemical and organic properties of sediment and source materials, are increasingly being used as a valuable and effective alternative approach to assembling such information. In this method, a suitable composite (set) of diagnostic properties and a multivariate mixing model are employed to estimate the relative contribution of sediment sources to sediments transported to basin outlet. In this study, using suitable composites of geochemical elements, capable of discriminating of the study basin,were used to determine contributions of that sub basins to sediment yield. For this aim, 20 surface samples from the 3 sources region facies and 5 samples from sand dunes were collected and Particles less than 62.5 as the target were tested. Elements were used as tracer. Then, Initial choice and optimal combination of tracers were done by Statistical methods including one-way Anova analysis of variance tests, Kruskal-Wallis, and Discrimination Analyze. the method using discriminant analysis 2 tracer(Manganese, Calcium) The tracers were used as the right combination. Finally, Contribution of the various land used Farmlands, Range and arid lands 50.52, 26.34, 23.14% respectively. The total highest sediment land used produce. Low absolute errors 3.6% and predicted properties. High model efficiencies 96%. the fingerprinting approach to source ascription has high efficiency to determine relative importance of sediment sources (subbasins) in the study basin.