Quantitative information on the spatial patterns of soil redistribution during storms and on the sources supplying sediment to rivers is essential for advancing our understanding of the processes that control sediment transfer and for designing effective sediment management strategies. It is also crucial to quantify the residence times of material moving along the sediment cascade and to reconstruct changes in sediment sources across a range of temporal scales. These needs are becoming increasingly urgent in light of intensified climate- and land use-driven impacts on erosion, sediment delivery, and sediment-related pollution affecting freshwater and marine environments. Over recent decades, sediment tracing (or fingerprinting) techniques, used alone or in combination with other approaches (including soil erosion modelling and sediment budgeting), have provided valuable insights to understand sediment source dynamics. Yet, their widespread application remains constrained by several methodological and conceptual challenges that the research community should address. We welcome contributions that address any of the following aspects:
• Developments of innovative field measurement and sediment sampling techniques;
• Advances in the accuracy and robustness of soil and sediment tracing techniques for quantifying soil erosion and redistribution;
• Sediment source tracing studies using conventional (e.g. elemental/isotopic geochemistry, fallout radionuclides, organic matter) or alternative (e.g. colour, infrared, hyperspectral, particle morphometry, eDNA) properties;
• Investigation of particle-bound contaminant transfers in catchments and river systems using sediment tracing techniques;
• Investigations of the current limitations in sediment tracing studies (e.g. tracer selection, tracer conservativeness, uncertainty analysis, particle size and organic matter corrections);
• Applications of radioisotope tracers to quantify sediment transit times over a broad range of timescales (from the flood to the century);
• Association of conventional techniques with remote sensing and emerging technologies (e.g. LiDAR, satellite);
• Cross-regional and multi-scale applications of tracing techniques to establish generic characterisations of source contributions;
• Integrated approaches to developing catchment sediment budgets: combining different measurement techniques, monitoring, and/or models to improve our understanding of sediment delivery processes.