SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF GULLY EROSION IN SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND

Lidar analysis and fieldwork in southern New England reveals widespread incidence of gullies dissecting glacial deposits and modern hillslopes. Gully width and depth range between 0.5 and 7 meters, and aerial patterns vary from isolated single thread channels to dendritic networks. In general, these gullies are post-glacial landforms that formed in the last 21 to 17 ka, but the occurrence of many gullies in direct association with fields and stone walls from 18^th-early 20^th century land-use practices suggests that at least some of the observed erosion is much younger and likely Anthropocene in origin. In this paper, we investigate spatial patterns of gully occurrence and present lidar-based estimates of the volumes of sediment removed through gully erosion throughout northwestern Connecticut. Most research dealing with the quantification of gully erosion has focused on sheet and rill erosion processes occurring at very small scales, rather than on gully erosion occurring on larger spatial scales such as those considered here. Geospatial analysis in Litchfield County, western Connecticut, has identified a total of 1,107 gullies with a total length of 173 km, mean length of 170 m, and a large percentage dissecting glacial till (97%).