Morava River floodplain development during the last millennium, Straznicke Pomoravi, Czech Republic

Floodplain sediments deposited along the lower course of the Morava River P (eastern Czech Republic), were studied in the Straznicke Pomoravi region to describe the alluvial history of the river over the last millennium. The sediments exposed in up to c m high erosional river banks were analysed using mineral magnetic, geochemical and chemical approaches. The age model of the sedimentary sequences was constructed from radiocarbon dates in association with Pb-206/Pb-207 and POP (DDT, PCB) analysis and Cs-137 activity data. The Cu-trien method was used for stratigraphically correlating these deposits based on the variation of expandable clay minerals in the sediments. The resulting stratigraphic pattern reveals the alluvial history of the currently active river channel system since the end of the first millennium Ad. Fine overbank clayey sediments deposited during the 'Mediaeval Warm Period' were eroded from cultivated fields newly formed during Mediaeval colonization between 1250 and 1450. These fine deposits are overlain by coarser floodplain sediments of the 'Little Ice Age', indicating a change in the sediment source since the sixteenth century AD, and a substantial increase in the sediment load in the second half of twentieth century. The Straznicke Pomoravi floodplain deposits represent a valuable palaeoenvironmental archive of the last millennium, containing records of fluvial processes considerably altered by human activities.