The use of satellite imagery to assess river sediment discharge is discussed in the context of poorly monitored basins. For more than three decades, the Peruvian hydrological service SENAMHI has been maintaining several gauging stations in the lower part of the Amazon River catchment. This network has been recently supplemented by the Hydro-geodynamics of the Amazon Basin (HYBAM) program, which has a water quality monitoring network distributed over five locations and allows the assessment of river discharge and surface suspended sediment (SSS) concentration. In this paper, the three stations that are located near the confluence of the Marañon and Ucayali Rivers, which form the Amazon River, are reviewed in detail. Two of the stations provide a complete time series of 10-day SSS samples over the studied period. The third station, along the Ucayali River, failed to provide valid estimate...

The suspended sediment yield and associated current denudation rates of eight large catchments located along the eastern range of the central Andes have been determined. The catchments have been chosen as mountainous and mainly denudational basins to avoid sediment sinks that could bias our analysis. Discharge data and suspended sediment concentrations measured at each catchment outlet have been combined to produce average annual sediment fluxes and thus yields and current denudation rates over time spans of 2–43 years. Denudation rates range between 0.25 and 1.20 mm yr−1 with a north to south gradient. Maximum values are observed in Bolivian catchments. A correlation analysis has been carried out to determine the main controlling factors of current denudation rates at the catchments spatial scale. Climatic, topographic and lithologic parameters have been studied. Our results suggest...