To properly assess soil erosion in agricultural areas, it is necessary to determine precisely the volume of ephemeral gullies and rills in the field by using direct measurement procedures. However, little information is available on the accuracy of the different methods used. The main purpose of this paper is to provide information for a suitable assessment of rill and ephemeral gully erosion with such direct measurement methods. To achieve this objective: a) the measurement errors associated to three methods used for field assessment of channel cross sectional areas are explored; b) the influence of the number of cross sections used per unit channel length on the assessment accuracy, is analysed and; c) the effect of the channel size and shape on measurement errors is examined. The three methods considered to

Highlights  ASCAT soil moisture data were assimilated into a conceptual and a physically-based model.  Optimal EnKF assimilation setups improved streamflow simulation in Mediterranean catchments.  Improvements varied from 6 to 45% from the validation run.  Linear re-scaling method outperformed variance matching and cumulative distribution function.  Largest improvements were achieved assuming observation errors within 1-6%.

Physically based hydrological models are complex tools that provide a complete description of the different processes occurring on a catchment. The TOPMODEL-based Land-Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (TOPLATS) simulates water and energy balances at different time steps, in both lumped and distributed modes. In order to gain insight on the behavior of TOPLATS and its applicability in different conditions a detailed evaluation needs to be carried out. This study aimed to develop a complete evaluation of TOPLATS including: 1) a detailed review of previous research works using this model; 2) a sensitivity analysis (SA) of the model with two contrasted methods (Morris and Sobol) of different

Different types of floods are frequently causing important economic and personal damages in a variety of locations within Navarre, a region located in northern Spain. Navarre is found very close to the Cantabrian sea, but only about ten percent of its area belongs to that basin, whereas ninety percent of the region belongs to the -Ebro river watershed -Mediterranean basin. Ranging from very humid oceanic climate areas to semi-deserted locations in the south of the region, floods can be caused by persistent winter fronts coming from the Atlantic ocean to very intense convective summer storm events originated in the Iberic mountain range, located to the south of Navarre. The NAdapta Life project includes actions that focus on the mitigation of flood damages. Specifically, the drafting of local emergency plans for small and medium size towns in Navarre is described here. In order to facilitate the flood emergency episodes management, computer tools have been developed for each village selected for the project. Specific websites and smartphone applications have been implemented for each local entity. Awareness, diffusion and training sessions have been carried out along with the implementation of 'drafting and tools' plans.