Assessing the Morphological Quality of the Calore River (Southern Italy)

Abstract

As highlighted by the EU Water Framework Directive from 2000, the hydromorphology of a stream, besides water quality and biological aspects, is one of the main elements to be evaluated to correctly assess its ecological state. Notwithstanding this, there are no such studies in peninsular Southern Italy. This study provides a contribution to filling this gap by assessing the morphological quality of one of the major rivers of this area, i.e., the Calore River, by using the IDRAIM method. The latter presents the advantage of taking into account the specific Italian context in terms of channel adjustments and human pressures, together with pre-existing geomorphological approaches developed in other countries. The method is based on data obtained by means of GIS analysis, remote sensing, and field survey. The analysis provided encouraging results, highlighting the good morphological quality of the Calore River. To maintain such quality, accurate monitoring of the human activities and/or careful planning of structures that could negatively affect the river’s morphological quality is unquestionably needed. The Calore River morphological quality seems to be controlled by artificiality rather than by the channel changes experienced since the 1950s. The results will be fundamental for already planned studies dealing with flood hazard and risk assessment.

Relationships between River and Groundwater Flow in an Alluvial Plain by Time Series Analysis and Numerical Modeling

“…Its catchment is about 2073 km 2 in correspondence of the Benevento Plain and has a mean discharge of some tens of m 3 /s (SIMN 1990). The river has a sinous shape and has experienced sever channel adjustments in the last 60-70 years (Magliulo et al 2022). During the wet season the river hydrograph is characterized by several discharge peaks following rainfall events, which can reach hudreds or few thousands of m 3 /s.…”