Marco Cavalli, Stefano Crema, Lorenzo Marchi, 2018, Geomorphometric assessment of sediment connectivity_ a new tool for sediment management, Sediment management in the channel networks_ from measurements to best-practices, Bolzano / Bozen, 8-9/11/2018,
URL: http://www.cnr.it/prodotto/i/393900

Sediment connectivity, which can be defined as the degree to which a system facilitates the transfer of water and sediment through itself, by means of coupling relationships between its components (Heckmann et al., 2018), has important implications for the behavior of geomorphic systems. In recent years, sediment connectivity has become a key issue in sediment transfer processes analysis and one of the building blocks of modern geomorphology. Geomorphic coupling and connectivity play a relevant role in the assessment of sediment budget in watersheds since they reflect the contribution of different processes that can have a large spatio-temporal variability. The growing availability of high-resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) offers new opportunities for the characterization of spatial patterns of sediment connectivity by enabling the quantitative modeling of sediment fluxes through geomorphometric approaches. Recently, a geomorphometric index of sediment connectivity has been developed (Cavalli et al., 2013) along with related freeware software tool (Crema and Cavalli, 2018) with the aim of characterizing connectivity patterns at the catchment scale allowing to estimate the contribution of a given part of the catchment as sediment source and define sediment transfer paths. In this work, the index of connectivity is presented with a specific focus on its recent applications in different contexts. The applications demonstrate that a reliable assessment of sediment connectivity via geomorphometric approach, especially when integrated with sediment sources inventory, is particularly useful for giving management priorities. This is a key issue when dealing with sediment management and has important linkages with hazard assessment and in relation to priorities of intervention at the catchment scale.

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