peer reviewed ; We report on our first investigations into the potential of optical dating for determining the rate of river flood sedimentation in the Ardenne region (S Belgium). Two samples collected from a recent alluvial deposit were used to investigate the extent of resetting in different particle size fractions of quartz (4-11 mu m, 63-90 mu m, 90-125 mu m, 125-180 mu m, 180-212 mu m and 212-250 mu m) as well as in polymineral fine (4-11 mu m) grains. Both samples show satisfactory OSL and IRSL characteristics. The IRSL signals from the polymineral fine grains yield an equivalent dose (D-e) of 3-4 Gy, while a D-e of 0.3-0.6 Gy was measured using large aliquots of quartz. Small aliquot analyses of 63-90 mu m and 212-250 mu m quartz grains confirm that the coarser fraction contains more grains with lower D-e's. Furthermore, for a modern sample (< 3 years old), similar to 60% of the aliquots yields a D-e consistent with zero, indicating that these contain only well-bleached grains. These findings suggest that it might be possible to extract the true burial dose from dose distributions measured using small aliquots of coarse-grained (e.g. 212-250 mu m) quartz.