Articles | Volume 4, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-4-471-2016
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-4-471-2016
Research article
 | 
22 Jun 2016
Research article |  | 22 Jun 2016

The influence of Holocene vegetation changes on topography and erosion rates: a case study at Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed, Arizona

Jon D. Pelletier, Mary H. Nichols, and Mark A. Nearing

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Interactive discussion

Status: closed
Status: closed
AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment
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Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision
AR by Jon Pelletier on behalf of the Authors (19 Apr 2016)  Author's response   Manuscript 
ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by Editor) (09 May 2016) by Simon Mudd
AR by Jon Pelletier on behalf of the Authors (18 May 2016)  Author's response   Manuscript 
ED: Publish as is (19 May 2016) by Simon Mudd
ED: Publish as is (23 May 2016) by Frédéric Herman (Editor)
AR by Jon Pelletier on behalf of the Authors (30 May 2016)
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Short summary
This paper documents that a shift from grassland to shrubland within the past few thousand years has caused erosion rates to increase more than 10-fold and drainage density to increase approximately 3-fold in areas of otherwise similar climate and geology at a study site in Arizona. We provide a mathematical model that predicts the observed drainage density under both grassland and shrubland conditions. In the model application we are able to tightly constrain every parameter.