Sediment transfer underpins nutrient cycling, ecosystem integrity, landscape formation, climate reconstruction, and resource management. Since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ~23,000–19,000 BP), Earth’s climate has gradually warmed, causing ice sheet recession, rising sea levels, and significant global ecosystem changes. However, the impacts of long-term climate change and human activities on sediment transfer since the LGM remain poorly understood. Here, we present a high-resolution reconstruction of sediment accumulation rates (SARs) across China since the LGM based on the new Chinese Lake and Peatland Sediment Record (CLASER) database. We find that 54% records exhibit increasing SARs over time. Three distinct phases driven by human activities and climate are identified: stable (20,000–8822 BC), fluctuant (8822 BC–1609 AD), and increasing (1609–1998 AD), characterized by 100–300-year cycles. The growing SARs correlate positively with land-use intensity and precipitation, and negatively with temperature. Regional patterns indicate that human activities and plant productivity mainly controlled sediment accumulation in the Eastern Plain and Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, while precipitation exerted a more substantial influence in lowland plains, and temperature played a greater role in plateau regions. Our quantified study highlights the long-term combined and regional-specific roles of climate and anthropogenic forcing in shaping sediment transfer across China since the LGM. Sediment accumulation across China has increased since the Last Glacial Maximum, driven by shifting climate and intensifying human land use, as revealed by a high-resolution reconstruction of sediment accumulation rates based on lake and peatland records.
Li et al. (Sat,) studied this question.