Avaliação de eficiência da implantação de técnica de bioengenharia de solos

O Baixo São Francisco está em constante dinâmica hidroambiental resultante das alterações promovidas na calha do rio, representadas pelos processos geomorfológicos ou por ações antrópicas como a construção das barragens que por sua vez provocou mudanças geomorfológicas resultando na aceleração de processos erosivos nas suas margens. O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a implantação de técnicas de recuperação hidroambiental com uso de bioengenharia de solos na margem do rio São Francisco. A área estudada compreende um trecho do baixo curso do rio São Francisco, localizado no município de Amparo do São Francisco, no estado de Sergipe, nordeste do Brasil, onde técnica de bioengenharia de solos, como enrocamento vegetado, foi implementada no ano de 2011. Três grupos de indicadores individuais foram selecionados que juntos contribuíram para a avaliação da Recuperação da Área Degradada relacionados à qualidade do solo, como resistência do solo à penetração e Velocidade de Infiltração Básica, à recuperação da biodiversidade como banco de sementes e a regeneração natural da área por meio de indicadores como composição e cobertura linear de espécies. A metodologia empregada contempla uma avaliação dos resultados originados do uso da biotécnica a partir da identificação da contribuição da vegetação que auxilia na contenção de taludes, uma vez que a cobertura vegetal protege a superfície do solo contra ações erosivas como o vento e a água da chuva. O reforço mecânico trazido pelo sistema radicular das plantas contra cisalhamento do solo se mostrou pela menor resistência à penetração do solo e maior Taxa de infiltração. Evaluation of efficiency of the implementation of soil bioengineering techniqueA B S T R A C TThe Lower São Francisco is in constant hydro-environmental dynamics resulting from the changes promoted in the river channel, represented by geomorphological processes or by anthropic actions such as the construction of dams that in turn caused geomorphological changes resulting in the acceleration of erosive processes on its banks. The objective of this work was to evaluate the implementation of hydroenvironmental recovery techniques using soil bioengineering on the bank of the São Francisco River. The studied area comprises a stretch of the low course of the São Francisco River, located in the municipality of Amparo do São Francisco, in the state of Sergipe, northeastearn Brazil, where soil bioengineering technique, such as vegetated rockfill, was implemented in 2011. Three groups of individual indicators were selected that together contributed to the assessment of Degraded Area Recovery related to soil quality, such as soil resistance to penetration and Basic Infiltration Speed, to the recovery of biodiversity as a seed bank and the natural area regeneration through indicators such as composition and linear species coverage. The employed methodology includes an evaluation of the results from the use of biotechnology based on the identification of the vegetation contribution that helps to contain slopes, since the vegetation cover protects the soil surface against erosive actions such as wind and rainwater. The mechanical reinforcement brought by the root system against soil shear was shown by the lower resistance to soil penetration and a higher infiltration rate.Keywords: Degraded Areas Recovery, erosion, São Francisco River

Impact of River Dams on Littoral Cells Located Adjacent to the River Mouth

Terrestrial sediment is a major source of sediment to all coasts. Suspended sediment is carried away by the rivers and supplied to the coast to maintain sediment budget. The construction of dams across the rivers arrest sediment behind it and affect the sediment budget of littoral cells along the coast. Reduction in sediment supply induces ecological as well as geomorphological changes along the shoreline. Coastal erosion may accelerate due to reduced sediment influx. With the growing number of cross-river dams and water diversion projects, it has become a major concern before the scientific community to measure, understand and find solutions to multi-fold geo-environmental problems that are arising out of river damming. The present study aims to find out the impact of dams on the coast. It examines how the changes in the suspended sediment supply of an Indian river impact the coast in terms of loss of area due to erosion. Temporal analysis of geomorphological changes along the shoreline in relation to sediment influx holds immense importance to coastal management essential for the sustainable life and livelihood of coastal communities. Scientific investigation into the impact of river dams on the coastal environment is likely to provide a strong ground to reconsider the way present basin development projects function. Areal changes in littoral sediment cells adjacent to the river mouth have been quantified and correlated with changes in sediment influx. Changes along the shorelines have been detected through multispectral satellite images of Landsat belonging to different dates. Image processing and quantification of changes have been performed in QGIS 3.14 “Pi” platform. Virtual raster, raster calculator, field calculator and other required tools in QGIS were used during image processing.

A Comparison of Landsat-8 OLI, Sentinel-2 MSI and PlanetScope Satellite Imagery for Assessing Coastline Change in El-Alamein, Egypt

The objective of this study was to provide an assessment of coastline extraction and change analysis using different sensors from three satellites over time. Imagery from Landsat-8 OLI, Sentinel-2A MSI, and PlanetScope-3B were used to detect geomorphological changes along the El-Alamein coastline on the Mediterranean Sea between August 2016 and August 2021. The normalized difference water index (NDWI) was applied to automate, detect and map water bodies based on thresholding techniques and coastline extraction. The extracted coastlines were analyzed using geographic information systems (GIS)-based digital shoreline analysis system (DSAS.v5) model, a GIS software tool for the estimation of shoreline change rates calculated through two statistical techniques: net shoreline movement (NSM) and end point rate (EPR). The results indicate that measuring coastline morphological change using satellite-based imagery depends very much on the resolution of the imagery. It is necessary to tailor the selection of imagery to the accuracy of the measurement needed. Higher resolution imagery such at PlanetScope (3 m) produces higher resolution measurements. However, medium resolution imagery from Landsat may be sufficiently good for objectives requiring less spatial resolution.

Effects of the Karkheh Dam construction on haze generation due to geomorphological changes (in the Khuzestan Province, Southwest of Iran)

An important factor for occurrence of dust storms is the construction of the Karkheh Dam in the Khuzestan province of Iran. It has reduced the annual mean of flow discharge in the Karkheh River from 120 to 50 m3/s and dried lands around river. The area of dried lands is 90.17 km2 around river and 333.45 km2 in the Hawr-al-Azim wetland. The Rosgen method, Fluvial-12 software, Shulits equation showed instability of the plan, cross sections of river and longitudinal slope of river, respectively, around Pay-e-pol hydrometric station (the upstream of river). After dam construction, extreme erosion occurred in this part of river. The type of sediment is clay and silt with D50 = 8 μm. The eroded sediment settles in downstream of river (around Hamidiyeh hydrometric station) and the Hawr-al-Azim wetland. The wind can easily lift these particles especially from May to July. Because of size of these particles, the haze concentration increased from 25% to 45% in dust storms. After construction dam, the dust storm days increased to 90 days in 2008. By increasing the stability of the river, the dust storms reduced from 2011. The annual volume of generated haze by geomorphological characteristic changes is almost 3107 m3.

Improvement of the Plantation Success in a Crib Wall in a Mediterranean Hydro-Meteorological Risks Scenario—Practical Results

Due to the clime change scenario, severe hydro-meteorological phenomena are having a high impact on the ecosystems of the earth. Some strategies based on the use of natural communities associated with geomorphological changes that restore the natural landscape are gaining success due the resistance and resilience against damages. All of these strategies are known as nature-based solutions (NBS). Soil and water bioengineering techniques are one of the most appreciated tools to reach effectiveness for slope stabilization. They are based on the capacity of some plants to consolidate the soil with his rooting system in special conditions (high slope, flooding impact). Slope stabilization solutions with soil and water bioengineering techniques need to be adapted to this new scenario. Crib wall is one of the most complete soil and water bioengineering technique for structural slope stabilization. It is based on a wooden box full of live plants that in the future will grow and gain stability at the same time that wood decays. The crib wall box is full of soil, and the front area is traditionally stabilized with some branches of fascines to let plants grow, maintaining the structure. Fascines are made of branches of riparian species with the capacity for vegetative propagation. Their diameter can change due to the humidity variation, so the stiffness of the system is at risk against severe hydro-meteorological phenomena. This study aims to assess that the introduction of HDCL in crib walls improves planting success and makes them more resistant to adverse weather events in Mediterranean areas. Four experiments were performed in controlled and natural conditions with this proposal. The results show that the use of natural fibers instead of branch fascine helps to maintain the humidity conditions and increase the resistance capacity. High-density coir logs (HDCL) are not affected by volume changes for humidity conditions. HDCL maintains the plant’s humidity conditions longer and makes plants grow faster, bigger and increase their survival. This method of Crib wall construction increases the associated biodiversity. The most important results are that the use of HDCL in crib walls has an effect on the growth of planted shrub, the development of roots, the colonization of native vegetation and ultimately, the resistance of the structure to the floods. The results also show that crib walls are a good technique for the stabilization of slopes with considerable gradients and high hydraulic impacts. HDCL can reduce the water stress of plantations, and they can be a good system to retain runoff and provide it to the plants. Finally, the HDCL allows the revegetation of a crib wall 30% faster than with branch fascine.

Sedimentary Provenance Changes Constrain the Eocene Initial Uplift of the Central Pamir, NW Tibetan Plateau

The Pamir Plateau region of the Northwestern Tibetan Plateau forms a prominent tectonic salient, separating the Tajik and Tarim basins. However, the topographic evolution of the Pamir Plateau remains elusive, despite the key role of this region played in the retreat of the Paratethys Ocean and in aridification across Central Asia. Therefore, the SW Tarim and Tajik basins are prime locations to decipher the geological history of the Pamir Plateau. Here, we present detrital zircon U/Pb and apatite fission-track (DAFT) ages from the Keliyang section of the SW Tarim Basin. DAFT ages show that sediments had three components during the Late Cretaceous and two components since the Oligocene. Detrital zircon U/Pb ages mainly cluster between 400 and 500 Ma during the Late Cretaceous, and coincide with ages of the Songpan-Ganzi and the West Kunlun Mountains. In contrast, detrital zircon U/Pb ages in the Eocene sediments are centered at around 200–300 Ma and 40–70 Ma, with a peak at ∼45 Ma, consistent with data from the Central Pamir and the West Kunlun Mountains. The ∼45 Ma peak in detrital zircon U/Pb ages since the Eocene indicates a new sedimentary source from the Central Pamir. Non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) analyses also show that the sedimentary source was closer to the Central Pamir after the Eocene, when compared to the Late Cretaceous. The result shows a clear Eocene provenance change in the Keliyang area. Moreover, this Eocene provenance shift has been detected in previous studies, in both the Tajik and Tarim basins, suggesting that the entire Central Pamir region likely experienced quasi-simultaneous abrupt uplift and paleo-geomorphological changes during the Eocene.

Worldwide Research Trends in Landslide Science

Landslides are generated by natural causes and by human action, causing various geomorphological changes as well as physical and socioeconomic loss of the environment and human life. The study, characterization and implementation of techniques are essential to reduce land vulnerability, different socioeconomic sector susceptibility and actions to guarantee better slope stability with a significant positive impact on society. The aim of this work is the bibliometric analysis of the different types of landslides that the United States Geological Survey (USGS) emphasizes, through the SCOPUS database and the VOSviewer software, for the analysis of their structure, scientific production, and the close relationship with several scientific fields and its trends. The methodology focuses on: (i) search criteria; (ii) data extraction and cleaning; (iii) generation of graphs and bibliometric mapping; and (iv) analysis of results and possible trends. The study and analysis of landslides are in a period of exponential growth, focusing mainly on techniques and solutions for the stabilization, prevention, and categorization of the most susceptible hillslope sectors. Therefore, this research field has the full collaboration of various authors and places a significant focus on the conceptual evolution of the landslide science.

How to Quantify the Dynamics of Single (Straight or Sinuous) and Multiple (Anabranching) Channels from Imagery for River Restoration

Since the 2000s, European rivers have undergone restoration works to give them back a little more ‘freedom space’ and consolidate the hydro-sedimentary continuum and biological continuity as required by the Water Framework Directive (WFD). In high-energy rivers, suppression of lateral constraints (embankment removal) leads to geomorphological readjustments in the modification of both the active-channel length and active-channel width. The article provides a new methodological development to overcome the shortcomings of traditional methods (based on diachronic cross-section analysis) unable to simultaneously take into account these geometric adjustments after active-channel restoration. It allows us to follow and precisely quantify the geomorphological changes of the active channel faced to the stakes (i.e., structures or urbanized, recreation or agricultural areas) in the floodplain. The methodology proposes three new indicators (distance from active channel to stakes or floodplain margins as indicator 1; distance from stakes to active channel as indicator 2; diachronic distance as indicator 3) and a metric analysis grid in the 2D Euclidean space. It is applied to the Clamoux River (order 4, Strahler; bankfull, specific stream power: 280 W/m2) in the Aude watershed (Mediterranean France). The paper shows the full potential of this methodological protocol to be able to meet managers’ expectations as closely as possible within the framework of the multi-annual active-channel monitoring.

Identifying Geomorphological Changes of Coastal Cliffs through Point Cloud Registration from UAV Images

Cliff monitoring is essential to stakeholders for their decision-making in maintaining a healthy coastal environment. Recently, photogrammetry-based technology has shown great successes in cliff monitoring. However, many methods to date require georeferencing efforts by either measuring geographic coordinates of the ground control points (GCPs) or using global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-enabled unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), significantly increasing the implementation costs. In this study, we proposed an alternative cliff monitoring methodology that does not rely on any georeferencing efforts but can still yield reliable monitoring results. To this end, we treated 3D point clouds of the cliff from different periods as geometric datasets and further aligned them into the same coordinate system using a rigid registration protocol. We examined the performance of our approach through a few small-scale experiments on a rock sample as well as a full-scale field validation on a coastal cliff. The findings of this study would be particularly valuable for underserved coastal communities, where high-end GPS devices and GIS specialists may not be easily accessible resources.