In this study we compare the results of a soil erosion model applied at watershed scale to the su... more In this study we compare the results of a soil erosion model applied at watershed scale to the suspended sediment measured in the stream network affected by a motor way construction. A sediment delivery model is applied at watershed scale; the evaluation of ...
The problem of soil erosion is a current issue, especially in hilly and mountainous areas where t... more The problem of soil erosion is a current issue, especially in hilly and mountainous areas where the driving force is surface runoff, able to mobilize large amounts of sediment that may be delivered to rivers. This process must be considered in a context of climate change, where the number of extreme rainfall events is observed to increase, and their temporal distribution is bound to concentrate in very short periods between long dry intervals of time. The potential soil erosion and degradation can be assessed through the study of the linkages between sources and sinks in a watershed, typically called sediment connectivity assessment. The evaluation of sediment connectivity allows to identify areas prone to the delivery of sediments through the catchment and local depressions that may disconnect land units. The quantitative assessment of sediment connectivity can be evaluated by the using of indexes (e.g. Index of connectivity – IC) with a pixel by pixel procedure in a GIS environmen...
Geomorphodiversity is a new emerging topic in earth sciences. Landform diversity influences and ... more Geomorphodiversity is a new emerging topic in earth sciences. Landform diversity influences and interacts with both biodiversity and geodiversity. Hence, there is an increased awareness of the need to understand patterns of geomorphodiversity in different landscapes facing the actual global change. An increasing body of evidence indicates that global climate change is taking place and that it will have important effects on biological processes over the next decades, such as yields and the quality of products, the distribution and outbreak potential of pests in a vast range of crops species, and across all land uses and landscapes.A new approach of landform geodiversity and biodiversity evaluation is proposed, based on the geomorphometric-biogeochemical signature of several geodynamic settings of the Tuscany region. Starting from a geomorphometry approach, the geostatistical and geostochastic modelling enables to quantify, describe, and compare different landforms, providing an obj...
Abstract The time scales of a catchment hydrologic response in a human impacted intra-Apennine ba... more Abstract The time scales of a catchment hydrologic response in a human impacted intra-Apennine basin, was assessed by a power spectral analysis. Turbidity and streamflow data, at high resolution (10 minutes) have been considered during four years. The turbidity and streamflow have heavy tails that follow approximately Pareto distributions. Both also display scaling Fourier power spectra of the form f-b, over different scaling ranges: from 10 minutes to one day for the turbidity and from 1 hour to 20 days for the streamflow data. For both locations the slope for the streamflow is close to b=1.7, whereas for turbidity the values b=1.68 and 2.25 are found for the upstream and downstream locations, respectively. The turbidity dataset at the downstream station has a steeper slope than the upstream station, implying a higher persistence of the turbidity fluctuations: this change of slope shows that the effect of the river channel and catchment is similar to a fractional integration from the upstream to the downstream data. Furthermore, the delay times of the turbidity dataset, and hence of suspended sediment, were calculated using a co-spectrum between the series and indicating characteristic transit times of 25 days and 145 days.
In small river basins, road building activities, if not properly carried out, can cause a signifi... more In small river basins, road building activities, if not properly carried out, can cause a significant increase in suspended sediment fluxes. In this study the effect of construction activity and its influence on suspended solid loads in an intra-Apennine forested small catchment, draining into Bilancino reservoir (Florence, Italy) was studied. Special attention was drawn to sedimentation processes in the drainage network near logging sites. This research links sediment sources and fluxes using a direct monitoring approach. The procedures take into account different portions the upstream source areas to assess the drainage network connectivity. Monitoring program was conducting by using time integrated sediment traps located along two stream inlets of the Bilancino reservoir. This study area was chosen because of (i) the lack of investigations on sediment loads, and (ii) to evaluate the impact of a new road construction. The results show that the highway construction has caused an 8-...
We investigated suspended and dissolved loads of two streams which drain into the Bilancino reser... more We investigated suspended and dissolved loads of two streams which drain into the Bilancino reservoir, the principal water supply of Florence in Italy. In northern Apennine, headwater catchments have been affected by mass movements. In the Bilancino watershed, more than 50% of the landslides are directly connected with the streams, which otherwise tend to transport little sediment due to the presence of 89 check dams, one for each square kilometre. Suspended sediment was monitored for two years using time-integrated sediment traps. One stream, which was impacted by road construction, had a suspended sediment yield of 116 t km -2 year -1 , while a nearby non-impacted stream had a yield of 14 t km -2 year -1 . The stream water chemistry was also affected by the highway construction, which has produced spoils containing albite and Na-bearing olistostrome. The calculated cation flux was 416 t km -2 year -1 for the impacted watershed and 210 t km -2 year -1 for the non-impacted one.
In this study we focus on the relation between archaeological sites and geomorphologic and pedolo... more In this study we focus on the relation between archaeological sites and geomorphologic and pedologic settings in the area of Lake Manyara and the Makuyuni river basin, Northern Tanzania. This region is known for Middle and Lower Pleistocene fossil finds and artefacts. Non invasive field methods were used to assess environmental variables like the spatial distribution of soil characteristics. Detailed terrain analysis on a high resolution DTM provide information on the geomorphologic processes, forms and features. We applied advanced geostatistical methods to regionalize the given information. The methodology considers not only the characteristics of specific transects but implicitly also the related pedogenetic and morphogenetic processes including actual erosion, transport and deposition processes. To analyze the spatial distribution of potential archaeological find locations we applied two different stochastic methodologies: i) statistical mechanics and ii) boosted regression tree...
In this study we compare the results of a soil erosion model applied at watershed scale to the su... more In this study we compare the results of a soil erosion model applied at watershed scale to the suspended sediment measured in the stream network affected by a motor way construction. A sediment delivery model is applied at watershed scale; the evaluation of ...
The problem of soil erosion is a current issue, especially in hilly and mountainous areas where t... more The problem of soil erosion is a current issue, especially in hilly and mountainous areas where the driving force is surface runoff, able to mobilize large amounts of sediment that may be delivered to rivers. This process must be considered in a context of climate change, where the number of extreme rainfall events is observed to increase, and their temporal distribution is bound to concentrate in very short periods between long dry intervals of time. The potential soil erosion and degradation can be assessed through the study of the linkages between sources and sinks in a watershed, typically called sediment connectivity assessment. The evaluation of sediment connectivity allows to identify areas prone to the delivery of sediments through the catchment and local depressions that may disconnect land units. The quantitative assessment of sediment connectivity can be evaluated by the using of indexes (e.g. Index of connectivity – IC) with a pixel by pixel procedure in a GIS environmen...
Geomorphodiversity is a new emerging topic in earth sciences. Landform diversity influences and ... more Geomorphodiversity is a new emerging topic in earth sciences. Landform diversity influences and interacts with both biodiversity and geodiversity. Hence, there is an increased awareness of the need to understand patterns of geomorphodiversity in different landscapes facing the actual global change. An increasing body of evidence indicates that global climate change is taking place and that it will have important effects on biological processes over the next decades, such as yields and the quality of products, the distribution and outbreak potential of pests in a vast range of crops species, and across all land uses and landscapes.A new approach of landform geodiversity and biodiversity evaluation is proposed, based on the geomorphometric-biogeochemical signature of several geodynamic settings of the Tuscany region. Starting from a geomorphometry approach, the geostatistical and geostochastic modelling enables to quantify, describe, and compare different landforms, providing an obj...
Abstract The time scales of a catchment hydrologic response in a human impacted intra-Apennine ba... more Abstract The time scales of a catchment hydrologic response in a human impacted intra-Apennine basin, was assessed by a power spectral analysis. Turbidity and streamflow data, at high resolution (10 minutes) have been considered during four years. The turbidity and streamflow have heavy tails that follow approximately Pareto distributions. Both also display scaling Fourier power spectra of the form f-b, over different scaling ranges: from 10 minutes to one day for the turbidity and from 1 hour to 20 days for the streamflow data. For both locations the slope for the streamflow is close to b=1.7, whereas for turbidity the values b=1.68 and 2.25 are found for the upstream and downstream locations, respectively. The turbidity dataset at the downstream station has a steeper slope than the upstream station, implying a higher persistence of the turbidity fluctuations: this change of slope shows that the effect of the river channel and catchment is similar to a fractional integration from the upstream to the downstream data. Furthermore, the delay times of the turbidity dataset, and hence of suspended sediment, were calculated using a co-spectrum between the series and indicating characteristic transit times of 25 days and 145 days.
In small river basins, road building activities, if not properly carried out, can cause a signifi... more In small river basins, road building activities, if not properly carried out, can cause a significant increase in suspended sediment fluxes. In this study the effect of construction activity and its influence on suspended solid loads in an intra-Apennine forested small catchment, draining into Bilancino reservoir (Florence, Italy) was studied. Special attention was drawn to sedimentation processes in the drainage network near logging sites. This research links sediment sources and fluxes using a direct monitoring approach. The procedures take into account different portions the upstream source areas to assess the drainage network connectivity. Monitoring program was conducting by using time integrated sediment traps located along two stream inlets of the Bilancino reservoir. This study area was chosen because of (i) the lack of investigations on sediment loads, and (ii) to evaluate the impact of a new road construction. The results show that the highway construction has caused an 8-...
We investigated suspended and dissolved loads of two streams which drain into the Bilancino reser... more We investigated suspended and dissolved loads of two streams which drain into the Bilancino reservoir, the principal water supply of Florence in Italy. In northern Apennine, headwater catchments have been affected by mass movements. In the Bilancino watershed, more than 50% of the landslides are directly connected with the streams, which otherwise tend to transport little sediment due to the presence of 89 check dams, one for each square kilometre. Suspended sediment was monitored for two years using time-integrated sediment traps. One stream, which was impacted by road construction, had a suspended sediment yield of 116 t km -2 year -1 , while a nearby non-impacted stream had a yield of 14 t km -2 year -1 . The stream water chemistry was also affected by the highway construction, which has produced spoils containing albite and Na-bearing olistostrome. The calculated cation flux was 416 t km -2 year -1 for the impacted watershed and 210 t km -2 year -1 for the non-impacted one.
In this study we focus on the relation between archaeological sites and geomorphologic and pedolo... more In this study we focus on the relation between archaeological sites and geomorphologic and pedologic settings in the area of Lake Manyara and the Makuyuni river basin, Northern Tanzania. This region is known for Middle and Lower Pleistocene fossil finds and artefacts. Non invasive field methods were used to assess environmental variables like the spatial distribution of soil characteristics. Detailed terrain analysis on a high resolution DTM provide information on the geomorphologic processes, forms and features. We applied advanced geostatistical methods to regionalize the given information. The methodology considers not only the characteristics of specific transects but implicitly also the related pedogenetic and morphogenetic processes including actual erosion, transport and deposition processes. To analyze the spatial distribution of potential archaeological find locations we applied two different stochastic methodologies: i) statistical mechanics and ii) boosted regression tree...
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