Search results for "Hillslope"
showing 10 items of 26 documents
Testing a theoretical resistance law for overland flow on a stony hillslope
2020
Overland flow, sediments, and nutrients transported in runoff are important processes involved in soil erosion and water pollution. Modelling transport of sediments and chemicals requires accurate estimates of hydraulic resistance, which is one of the key variables characterizing runoff water depth and velocity. In this paper, a new theoretical power–velocity profile, originally deduced neglecting the impact effect of rainfall, was initially modified for taking into account the effect of rainfall intensity. Then a theoretical flow resistance law was obtained by integration of the new flow velocity distribution. This flow resistance law was tested using field measurements by Nearing for the …
Eco-geomorphological connectivity and coupling interactions at hillslope scale in drylands: Concepts and critical examples
2020
The diagnosis of land degradation requires a deep understanding of ecosystem functioning and evolution. In dryland systems, in particular, research efforts must address the redistribution of scarce resources for vegetation, in a context of high spatial heterogeneity and non-linear response. This fact explains the prevalence of eco-hydrological perspectives interested in runoff processes and, the more recent, focused on connectivity as an indicator of system resource optimisation. From a geomorphological perspective and reviewing the concepts of eco-hydro-geomorphological interactions operating in ecosystems, this paper explores the effects of erosion on vegetation configuration through two …
Analytical solution of kinematic wave time of concentration for overland flow under green-ampt infiltration
2015
In this paper the well-known kinematic wave equation for computing the time of concentration for impervious surfaces has been extended to the case of pervious hillslopes, accounting for infiltration. An analytical solution for the time of concentration for overland flow on a rectangular plane surface is derived using the kinematic wave equation under the Green-Ampt infiltration. The relative time of concentration is defined as the ratio between the time of concentration of an infiltrating plane and the soil sorptivity time scale, depending on the normalized rainfall intensity and a parameter synthesizing the soil and hillslope characteristics. It is shown that for a more complex case (corre…
Morphological Similarity of Channels: From Linear Erosional Features (Rill, Gully) to Alpine Rivers
2017
The geometric characteristics of incised features such as channels, rills, ephemeral gully, gully, represent the erosional transport regime and the fluvial dynamic equilibrium, and thus it is critical for the understanding of the long-term evolution of natural, agricultural, and anthropogenic landscapes. This paper examines the morphological similarity of channelized erosion in two different environments such as Alpine landscapes and cultivated hillslopes. The first dataset comprises six rivers in the Italian Alps, three in the Carnia region and three in the Dolomites, where erosion is mainly the effect of discharges with high sediment loads or landslides and debris flows. The agricultural …
Slope threshold for overland flow resistance on sandy soils
2021
Recent research on rill flows recognised that an 18% slope can be used to distinguish between ‘gentle’ and ‘steep’ slope cases for the detected differences in hydraulic (flow depth and velocity) and sediment transport variables (flow transport capacity, actual sediment load). The effects of slope on flow velocity, friction factor and transport capacity and their interactions affect process-based erosion modelling. The main aim of this paper is to investigate, for the first time, how slope affects the overland flow resistance on sandy soils, which are characterised by loose particles readily available to be transported and deposited. Using literature measurements carried out in sandy soils f…
Slope threshold in rill flow resistance
2022
The applicability of a theoretical rill flow resistance equation, based on the integration of a power velocity distribution, was tested using measurements carried out in mobile and fixed bed rills, shaped on plots having different slopes (9, 14, 15, 18, 22, 24, 25 and 26%) and soil textures (clay fractions ranging from 32.7% to 73% and silt of 19.9–30.9%), and flume measurements available in the literature. The Darcy–Weisbach friction factor resulted dependent on the slope, Froude number, Reynolds number and clay and silt percentages, used as variables representative of soil transportability and detachability, respectively. This theoretical approach was applied to two different databases di…
Estimating flow resistance in steep slope rills
2021
Recent research recognized that the slope of 18% can be used to distinguish between the ‘gentle slope’ case and that of ‘steep slope’ for the detected differences in hydraulic variables (flow depth, velocity, Reynolds number, Froude number) and those representatives of sediment transport (flow transport capacity, actual sediment load). In this paper, using previous measurements carried out in mobile bed rills and flume experiments characterized by steep slopes (i.e., slope greater than or equal to 18%), a theoretical rill flow resistance equation to estimate the Darcy-Weisbach friction factor is tested. The main aim is to deduce a relationship between the velocity profile parameter Γ, the c…
A rational runoff coefficient for a revisited rational formula
2019
The Rational Formula (RF) is probably the most frequently applied equation in practical hydrology to compute the peak discharge, due to its simplicity and effective compromise between theory and data availability. Thus, after more than a century, the estimation of peak discharge through the RF is still an important and challenging issue in hydrology. The RF assumes response linearity and sometimes assumes that the return period does not depend on the runoff coefficient and neglects the time to ponding and the antecedent moisture condition. Moreover, the RF requires the critical duration of rainfall and the runoff coefficient to be estimated, both of which are highly controversial. This pape…
Modeling the hydrological and mechanical effect of roots on shallow landslides
2016
This study proposes a new methodology for estimating the additional shear strength (or cohesion) exerted by vegetation roots on slope stability analysis within a coupled hydrological-stability model. The mechanical root cohesion is estimated within a Fiber Bundle Model framework that allows for the evaluation of the root strength as a function of stress-strain relationships of populations of fibers. The use of such model requires the knowledge of the root architecture. A branching topology model based on Leonardo's rule is developed, providing an estimation of the amount of roots and the distribution of diameters with depth. The proposed methodology has been implemented into an existing dis…
A review of runoff generation and soil erosion across scales in semiarid south-eastern Spain
2011
Climate, lithology, soil and especially, intense land use/cover changes, make SE Spain very vulnerable to runoff generation and water erosion leading to loss of nutrients and organic matter and to infrequent but devastating floods, reservoir siltation and mass failures. This susceptibility has led to heavy economic investment and research efforts since the 1980s, making this region a worldwide reference for understanding the hydrology and geomorphology of semiarid ecosystems. Runoff and soil erosion have been intensively studied throughout the last decades in various natural ecosystems as well as in abandoned farmlands. Research has considered a wide range of methods and spatial and tempora…