Articles | Volume 7, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-7-107-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-7-107-2019
Research article
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25 Jan 2019
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 25 Jan 2019

Long-term erosion of the Nepal Himalayas by bedrock landsliding: the role of monsoons, earthquakes and giant landslides

Odin Marc, Robert Behling, Christoff Andermann, Jens M. Turowski, Luc Illien, Sigrid Roessner, and Niels Hovius

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Cited articles

Abrahami, R., van der Beek, P., Huyghe, P., Hardwick, E., and Carcaillet, J.: Decoupling of long-term exhumation and short-term erosion rates in the Sikkim Himalaya, Earth Planet. Sc. Lett., 433, 76–88, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2015.10.039, 2016. 
Ali, K. F. and De Boer, D. H.: Spatial patterns and variation of sus-pended sediment yield in the upper Indus River basin, northern Pakistan, J. Hydrol., 334, 368–387, 2007. 
Andermann, C., Crave, A., Gloaguen, R., Davy, P., and Bonnet, S.: Connecting source and transport: Suspended sediments in the Nepal Himalayas, Earth Planet. Sc. Lett., 351–352, 158–170, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2012.06.059, 2012. 
Avouac, J.-P.: From Geodetic Imaging of Seismic and Aseismic Fault Slip to Dynamic Modeling of the Seismic Cycle, Annu. Rev. Earth Pl. Sc., 43, 233–271, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-060614-105302, 2015. 
Avouac, J.-P., Meng, L., Wei, S., Wang, T., and Ampuero, J.-P.: Lower edge of locked Main Himalayan Thrust unzipped by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, Nat. Geosci., 8, p. 708, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2518, 2015. 
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Short summary
We mapped eight monsoon-related (> 100 m2) and large (> 0.1 km2) landslides in the Nepal Himalayas since 1970. Adding inventories of Holocene landslides, giant landslides (> 1 km3), and landslides from the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, we constrain the size–frequency distribution of monsoon- and earthquake-induced landslides. Both contribute ~50 % to a long-term (> 10 kyr) total erosion of ~2 mm yr-1, matching the long-term exhumation rate. Large landslides rarer than 10Be sampling time drive erosion.
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