Search results for "Geomorphology"

Sediment yield from glacio-lacustrine calcareous deposits during the postglacial period in the Combe d’Ain (Jura, France)

1998

The middle valley of the river Ain (Jura) cuts through glacio-lacustrine deposits laid down in an ice-dammed lake during the most recent glacial advance. The total volume eroded is about 6·21 ×10 8 m 3 for a surface area of 3·7 ×10 7 m 2 . Erosion occurred between 18 ka BP and 6 ka BP, i.e. over a duration of some 12 ka. Sediment yield from the area was of the order of 2500 t km -2 a -1 , which is comparable with modern-day sediment yield from NW African badlands. These high values are ascribed to the amenability of glacio-lacustrine deposits to mechanical weathering and to the rapid geomorphological changes that affected glacial and paraglacial sedimentary cover after the retreat of the ic…

A multidisciplinary approach to the evaluation of the mechanism that triggered the Cerda landslide (Sicily, Italy).

2005

Abstract The present paper describes a multidisciplinary approach to the evaluation of a seismically triggered landslide that occurred in the Cerda area (Italy) on September 6, 2002, about 1 h after an earthquake took place in the south Tyrrhenian Sea. The study was focused on an analysis of the role of the seismic input in triggering the landslide, in view of the evidence that no other mass movement was recorded in the adjacent areas despite geological and geomorphological spatial homogeneity. The studied area is located on a slope of the western flank of the Fiume Imera Settentrionale (Northern Sicily), which is made up of clayey–arenitic rocks. The slope inclines gently but is not unifor…

Combining Mechanistic Approaches for Studying Eco-Hydro-Geomorphic Coupling

2008

Sediment Transport and Hydrodynamic Parameters of Tsunami Waves Recorded in Onshore Geoarchives

2014

In regions with a short historical tsunami record, the assessment of long-term tsunami risk strongly depends on geological evidence of prehistoric events. Whereas dating tsunami deposits is already well established, magnitude assessment based on remaining sedimentary structures is still a major challenge. In this study, two approaches were applied to deduce transport processes and hydrodynamic parameters of tsunami events from onshore deposits found in the coastal plain of Ban Bang Sak, SW Thailand: (1) The maximum offshore sediment source was determined using granulometry, geochemistry, mineralogy and foraminifera of the tsunamites, and reference samples from various marine and terrestrial…

Are calanco landforms similar to river basins?

2017

In the past badlands have been often considered as ideal field laboratories for studying landscape evolution because of their geometrical similarity to larger fluvial systems. For a given hydrological process, no scientific proof exists that badlands can be considered a model of river basin prototypes. In this paper the measurements carried out on 45 Sicilian calanchi, a type of badlands that appears as a small-scale hydrographic unit, are used to establish their morphological similarity with river systems whose data are available in the literature. At first the geomorphological similarity is studied by identifying the dimensionless groups, which can assume the same value or a scaled one in…

Identifiability analysis for receiving water body quality modelling

2009

In urban drainage, new computational possibilities have supported the development of new integrated approaches aimed at joint water quantity and quality analysis of the whole urban drainage system. Although the benefit of an integrated approach has been widely demonstrated, to date, several aspects prevent its applicability such as scarce availability of field data if compared with model complexity. These aspects sometimes prevent the correct estimation of parameters thus leading to large uncertainty in modelling response. This is a typical parameter identifiability problem that is discussed in the present paper evaluating the effect of identifiability procedures in increasing operator conf…

Modelling of E. colidistribution in coastal areas subjected to combined sewer overflows

2013

Rivers, lakes and the sea were the natural receivers of raw urban waste and storm waters for a long time but the low sustainability of such practice, the increase of population and a renewed environmental sensibility increased researcher interest in the analysis and mitigation of the impact of urban waters on receiving water bodies (RWB). In Europe, the integrated modelling of drainage systems and RWB has been promoted as a promising approach for implementing the Water Framework Directive. A particular interest is given to the fate of pathogens and especially of Escherichia coli, in all the cases in which an interaction between population and the RWB is foreseen. The present paper aims to p…

Analysis of Hydrological and Landslide Hazards at Castellammare Del Golfo (Northern Sicily)

2014

Catastrophic floods or mass movements occur all too often owing to small streams overflowing their banks or to slope instabilities whose evolution has a more or less tragic impact on people and property; these events are the consequence of a poor understanding of the dynamics of geomorphological processes and of the laws governing them. This paper is focused on the case study of Castellammare del Golfo, a town in the province of Trapani. The study analysed the geological risk due to the geomorphology of the area and to the urban sprawl that it has experienced in the past decades. Geomorphological processes have a strategic role to play in spatial planning and management instruments and in t…

New Flow-Resistance Law for Steep Mountain Streams Based on Velocity Profile

2017

This paper deduces a new flow-resistance equation for open-channel flow applying dimensional analysis and self-similarity theory. The incomplete self-similarity hypothesis is used to establish the flow velocity distribution whose integration gives the theoretical expression of the Darcy-Weisbach friction factor. The theoretical resistance equation then is tested by the available field measurements of flow velocity, water depth, river width and bed slope carried out in 653 reaches of several Canadian mountain streams. A relationship between the G function of the velocity profile and the channel slope and the flow Froude number is also established. The analysis shows that the Darcy- Weisbach …

Sedimentary features reveal transport paths for Holocene sediments on the Kristianstad coastal plain, SE Sweden.

2017

AbstractWe have investigated coastal and aeolian deposits on the Kristianstad plain in southernmost Sweden by a combination of methods that has yielded data on sedimentary features such as grain-size variations, shape and character of quartz grain surfaces (determined in light microscope and scanning electron microscope), and mineralogical composition. Such sedimentary techniques have been not applied to coastal deposits in this part of the Baltic Sea region before. The littoral, foredune and parabolic dune sands are sedimentologically similar, only a slight grain-size transformation by aeolian processes in the foredune was observed. Sand in straight-crested dunes, on the other hand, origin…