Correction to A regime shift in sediment export from a coastal watershed during a record wet winter, California: Implications for landscape response to hydroclimatic extremes

Abstract

Amy E. East, Andrew W. Stevens, Andrew C. Ritchie, Patrick L. Barnard, Pamela Campbell-Swarzenski, Brian D. Collins and Christopher H. Conaway. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 43 (12), 2562–2577. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.4415

In the referenced article, the authors would like to correct text in the first paragraph on page 2571, Figure 9 and its caption. The changes reflect errors made in the processing of the rainfall intensity-duration data used to compare storms to published debris flow triggering thresholds. The correctly processed data does not change the interpretations made in the paper. The revision to the data processing does correctly indicate that the investigated storms did not exceed the rainfall intensity – duration threshold of Cannon (1988) but did significantly exceed the debris flow triggering threshold of Wieczorek (1987).

The first paragraph should read:

We can, however, assess whether precipitation conditions during the 2016–2017 wet season were sufficient to cause substantial landsliding based on proxies developed for previous large storms in this region (the San Francisco Bay area; Wieczorek, 1987; Cannon, 1988). Hourly precipitation data from NOAA COOP station USC00040673 reveals that multiple storms between December 2016 and February 2017 had rain intensity and duration well-above minimum threshold conditions for debris flow triggering (Wieczorek, 1987) and reached ~60% of the threshold (Cannon, 1988) that delineates previous record-setting regional landslide activity (Figure 9). Before these storms, antecedent rainfall of 254 mm (10 in.) had been reached by mid-November, a baseline value generally considered necessary to achieve subsurface hydrologic conditions suitable to generate landslides in this region (Cannon, 1988). Two long-duration, early January storms (2 January and 7 January), with maximum rainfall intensities of the season, coincided with the increases in SSC and sand content in the San Lorenzo River (Figure 5), and the steep increase in sand proportion during the 19 January flow peak (Figure 5) coincided with the most intense rainfall event of the season (Figure 9).

We apologize for this error.