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Abstract
Land management practices can be improved upon by elucidating the ways in which human activity can drastically change erosion rates. Severe erosion is exacerbated in the southern Appalachian Piedmont region of the United States where native forest was cleared for farming and tilling in the early 18th century, undergoing no conservation until the mid 20th century. The use of 10Be cosmogenic nuclide dating quantifies the amount of time sediment has been exposed to cosmic rays; thus by utilizing in situ-produced 10Be cosmogenic nuclides collected in fluvial sediments from Holcombe’s Branch and Tyger River, millennial scale denudation rates were measured (7.1 ± 0.2 m/Ma). Post non-indigenous immigrant settlement, hillslope erosion rates and sediment yield data in the southern Piedmont and Broad River Basin reflect elevated rates of erosion when compared to 10Be derived denudation rates. Landscape management tactics can be aided by knowledge of the background denudation rates to improve conservation measures.