Alluvial fans are known to be areas of high geomorphic activity, where debris flows and flash floods caused by intense and prolonged rainfall are a major hazard. In Calabria, southern Italy, alluvial fans are numerous. The exact age of the alluvial fans is seldom known, but most of the fans in Calabria are considered recent in age (Holocene).
Due to the significant increase in urbanization in the last two centuries, many alluvial fans are ...
Not all that flows in creeks is water. Debris flows i.e., surges in which solid particles move together with little water, may occur in steep mountain streams, mainly as a consequence of intense rainfall. Debris flows have a high kinetic energy, and may cause major damage if they encroach buildings, roads and bridges. They are also a primary cause of landslide casualties. The video below shows an example of debris flows.
The low ...
ALMOND-F is an innovative unit for the microseismic detection of debris flows using a network of geophones.
The microseismic detection of debris flows is more complex than other types of monitoring. Use of the geophones requires: (1) the selection of the level of amplification of the signal, which depends on the distance from the stream; (2) the selection of the sampling frequency of the seismic signal, which must be sufficiently high; (3) ...
Mass wasting is a threat to residential areas and infrastructure, causing widespread destabilization in alpine stream channels, also in relation to ongoing climatic changes. Although hillslope sediment supply represents a critical factor for stream channel stability during heavy rainstorms, there is a general lack of procedures for quantifying sediment availability and composition. Moreover, we lack validated empirical models for estimating ...
Past debris flows in the Rio Kortol catchment arise concerns for the safety of the village of Sauris di Sotto, and urge new studies for the assessment of hazard and the choice of risk mitigation ...
Critical and depositional friction angles are characteristic for the deposition of a granular mass; the wrong angle adoption determines the ineffectiveness of a containment basin. The term is used with different meanings and measured by various procedures. The numerical simulation is a useful tool for the hazard assessment, but the definition of friction needed parameters requires insights on their ...
Environmental sensor monitoring is continuously developing, both in terms of quantity (i.e. measurement sites), and quality (i.e. technological innovation). Environmental monitoring is carried out by either public or private entities for their own specific purposes, such as scientific research, civil protection, support to industrial and agricultural activities, services for citizens, security, education and information.
The left Cenischia ...
Usually the video cameras installed within a debris-flow monitoring site have the role of recording videos to better understand the behavior of the event for an improved interpretation of its dynamic. The use of such cameras for Image Velocimetry purpose is still nowadays a ...
The aim of the geomorphometric analysis is to derive indices capable of characterizing the spatial variability of specific hydro-geomorphological processes (e.g., sediment connectivity, erosion and deposit). The growing availability of high-resolution topographic data has increased the interest in geomorphometry and its applications. Debris-flow monitoring in instrumented areas and flash-flood documentation are invaluable ways to gather field ...
Both China and Italy are characterized by large mountainous areas, where natural hazards (e.g., geological and hydrological hazards such as debris flows, landsides, flash floods) are widespread and seriously threatening local society. It is noted that, almost 67% and 76% of the territories are covered by mountains in China and Italy, respectively and the youngest chains in the Eurasia, namely the Alps and the Tibetan Plateau, are characterized ...
This dataset consists of rainfall data and debris-flow hydrographs recorded in the Moscardo Torrent (Carnic Alps, northeastern Italy).
The Moscardo Torrent was instrumented for debris-flow monitoring by CNR IRPI (Torino office) in 1989; the research was then continued in collaboration with the Padova office. Since 2010 the monitoring activities are carried on in collaboration with the University of Udine (Dept. of Agricultural and ...
In international literature, it is now widely recognized that alluvial fans are areas of high geomorphic activity. Debris flows and flash floods occur episodically in these environments, and place many communities at high risk. Calabria (southern Italy) is a region where alluvial fans widely occur. In this region, the presence of mountain fronts/alluvial and/or coastal plain, or deep and narrow valleys debouching into larger valleys are key ...
With more than 5 million people affected, more than 1000 killed, and with estimated total damages exceeding 4.5 billion Euros just in Europe and during the last decade, floods are among the most disruptive natural events threatening our Society. Due to increase in extreme weather events and rapid socio-economic developments in vulnerable locations, the risks connected to floods in general are growing rapidly, and the awareness of these risks ...
Some areas mapped in the Piani di Assetto Idrogeologico (Watershed Management Plan) of Piave, Brenta-Bacchiglione and Livenza Rivers require specific studies aimed at assigning a degree of hazard. Among the warning areas, there are numerous alluvial fans. The Soil Conservation Division of Veneto Region, in charge of the inquiry, identified the need to find an objective method for assessing the hazard of such ...
Monitoring of debris flows in instrumented areas is carried out since many years in different Countries worldwide. It is still missing, however, an adequate standardization of methodologies, instrumentations and procedures. The instrumented areas are also employed for testing warning systems. Even though these latter have been more and more employed, a systematic experimentation of these systems has not yet been carried ...
Sediment transport in small mountain catchments (drainage area < 10-20 km2) is a fundamental process for the equilibrium and the dynamics of the whole channel network. At the same time, sediment transport can create high-risk conditions due to the occurrence of extreme phenomena such as debris flow, hyperconcentrated flow, and flood with intense bedload, usually triggered by intense and short duration rainfall. In order to properly manage ...
Decision matrices may contribute to mountain watershed management by defining coherent event scenarios that take into account the type of flow processes (e.g., water floods with bedload, debris flows), their geomorphic effects, and the interactions with hydraulic control ...
Debris-flow monitoring in instrumented areas is an invaluable way to gather field data that may improve the understanding of these hazardous phenomena, as well as for the development of warning systems. The number of monitoring sites and the amount of recorded data on debris flows, however, still remain limited if compared to landslides and fluvial sediment transport. This motivated the Autonomous Province of Bozen-Bolzano to implement a new ...
Wildfires can have profound effects on the hydrologic response of watersheds, and debris-flow activity is among the most destructive consequences of these effects. The continued high likelihood of catastrophic wildfires in Mediterranean climates has created the need to develop methods to identify and quantify potential debris flow hazards from burned ...
The assessment debris-flow hazard is of utmost importance in the management of alpine catchments. The analysis of morphometric variables of drainage basins and channels can contribute to preliminary assessment of debris-flow hazard at regional ...
Debris flows and rockfalls are a familiar hazard in European mountain areas and regularly cause loss of life, livelihood and property. Hazard assessment is therefore increasingly required in land use planning. However, there are no standard techniques and existing operational techniques are qualitative.
DAMOCLES developed quantitative technologies for assessing the distribution of rapid slope failures and their hazard, for determining the ...
