Global change and long-term gully sediment production dynamics in Basilicata, southern Italy

Abstract

The Fossa Bradanica in Basilicata (S Italy) is\ud affected by almost 15% permanent Pleistocene and Holocene\ud gullies. In the past decades climate versus land use\ud management have dramatically increase both the soil loss\ud rate and the muddy-flooding frequency. In this paper the\ud impact of global change on soil production rates and erosion/\ud deposition dynamics at medium-time scale (1949–2000) for\ud two permanent gullies (Fosso Lavandaio and Fosso San\ud Teodoro) has been studied. Pluviometric regime, land use\ud changes and multi-temporal (1949, 1986 and 2000) subtraction\ud method of digital elevation models have been conducted.\ud From 1949 to 1986 the sediment production rate was\ud estimated in 1,988.43 Mg ha-1 year-1 at Fosso Lavandaio\ud and in 808.5 Mg ha-1 year-1 at Fosso San Teodoro, with\ud deposition prevailing over erosion processes. From 1986\ud to 2000 the sediment production rate was estimated in\ud 2,487.92 Mg ha-1 year-1 at Fosso Lavandaio and in\ud 2,883.9 Mg ha-1 year-1 at Fosso San Teodoro, with higher\ud values of net erosion. The data confirm that the increase in\ud sedimentation would be due to human activities, in particular\ud the levelling of gully heads for the production of cereals and\ud orchards. Differently, the increase of the erosion processes\ud depends on the recent changes of the pluviometric regime\ud characterized by the extension of dry horizon and the concentration\ud of high magnitude precipitation in macro-events\ud of three to four consecutive days

Gully morphology, hillslope erosion, and precipitation characteristics in the Appalachian Valley and Ridge province, southeastern USA

“…Either very intense precipitation is associated with erosion (Archibold et al, 2003;Porto et al, 2014;Schnabel and Amelia, 1993;Sirvent et al, 1997;Valentin et al, 2005), or the cumulative effect of long duration low intensity events is more significant (Trustrum et al, 1999). Previous studies in different soil and climatic regimes identified event-based to weekly precipitation in the rainy season as primary drivers for soil erosion (Martınez-Casasnovas et al, 2002;Piccarreta et al, 2012;Poesen and Hooke, 1997;Renschler et al, 1999). In contrast, our research found that for Ultisols in a humid climate, a combination of antecedent precipitation and weekly total precipitation accumulation together can explain about 50% of variability in the erosion data.…”

Hydrology of the Upper Indus Basin Under Potential Climate Change Scenarios

“…Volumetric analysis have been performed also in Basilicata (Piccarreta et al 2012), where during the last century agricultural soils underwent continuous degradation, due to the highly erodible nature of outcropping terrains and to the anthropic pressure. An attempt to quantify the contribution of gully erosion to overall soil loss and sediment production, by adopting a consolidate procedure in GIS to determine medium-term sediment production and deposition rates in a large gully of Fossa Bradanica, was based on the subtraction of multi-date elevation values from DEMs, including sediment produced by different processes.…”

Dynamics and patterns of land levelling for agricultural reclamation of erosional badlands in Chambal Valley (Madhya Pradesh, India)

“…Of the few examples reported in the literature, the best documented is the case of the Italian calanchi and biancane badlands that have been flattened to varying degrees for cereal cultivation stimulated by agrarian reforms of the 1950s and the European Union Common Agricultural Policy (Phillips, 1998;Clarke and Rendell, 2000;Piccarreta et al, 2006;Capolongo et al, 2008;Piccarreta et al, 2012). Of the few examples reported in the literature, the best documented is the case of the Italian calanchi and biancane badlands that have been flattened to varying degrees for cereal cultivation stimulated by agrarian reforms of the 1950s and the European Union Common Agricultural Policy (Phillips, 1998;Clarke and Rendell, 2000;Piccarreta et al, 2006;Capolongo et al, 2008;Piccarreta et al, 2012).…”