Dissolved load

Dissolved load is material, especially ions from chemical weathering, that are carried in solution by a stream. The dissolved load contributes to the total amount of material removed from a catchment. The amount of material carried as dissolved load is typically much smaller than the suspended load, though this is not always the case particularly when the available river flow is mostly harnessed for irrigation, industrial, etc. purposes. Dissolved load comprises a significant portion of the total material flux out of a landscape, and its composition is important in regulating the chemistry and biology of the stream water.

Salt export

The process of carrying salts by water to the sea or a land locked lake from a river basin is called salt export. When adequate salt export is not taking place, the river basin area particularly in lower reaches gradually converts into saline soils and/or alkali soils. The salt export from the major rivers are

Salt export of important rivers

River	@Mean annual flow to the sea	Drainage area	Dissolved load	Suspended load
	Billion cubic meters	1000 km2	Million tons/yr	Million tons/yr
Amazon	5500	6300	287	900
Yangtze	1,063	1,950	226	478
Orinoco	946	950	50	210
Mekong	666	795	59	160
Mississippi	580	3,267	131	210
Brahmaputra	510	580	51	597
Ganga	250	750	84	329
Irrawaddy	422	430	90	285
Magdalena	236	240	28	220
Godavari	75	310	17	170
Huanghe	48	745	22	1,080
Krishna	24	257	12	1.74
Kavery	8	88	3.5	0.04
All rivers	31,400	101,000	3,600	13,505

@ includes water transfer to other river basins

See also

• Bed load
• Rouse number
• Sediment
• Sediment transport
• Stream load
• Suspended load
• Wash load

References

USGS CMG InfoBank: Suspended and Dissolved Loads