Monitoring and Modeling Drainage Network Contraction and Dry Down in Mediterranean Headwater Catchments

Abstract

Virtually all watercourses experience discontinuous flows along their drainage network. Nonpermanent streams can be observed not only in dry regions but also in most low-order channels of the network, representing more than 89% of the global river network (G. H.

Monitoring and Modeling Drainage Network Contraction and Dry Down in Mediterranean Headwater Catchments

“…The modified DTM and the experimental data collected for this study are available at Senatore et al. ( 2020 ).…”

“…The original DTM, the geolithological map of the study area, and the orthophotos are provided by the Calabria Region geoportal: http://geoportale.regione.calabria.it/opendata. The modified DTM and the experimental data collected for this study are available at Senatore et al (2020). The authors thank Pasqualino Artiglieri and Licio Argento for their help in performing the field surveys and Francesco Colosimo and Roberto Di Gaudio for their support with discharge measurements.…”

Probabilistic Description of Streamflow and Active Length Regimes in Rivers

“…To evaluate the dynamicity of the river network, and quantify its tendency to extend or contract in response to rainfall events accounting for geologic and topographic characteristics of the site, a well‐established empirical relationship between the total active drainage length ( L ) and the corresponding specific discharge ( q ) was used. According to this formulation, the active stream length increases as a power law function of the catchment discharge as (Godsey & Kirchner, 2014; Jensen et al., 2017; Lapides et al., 2021; Senatore et al., 2021): $$$L=\ a{\ q}^{b}.$$$ …”

“…The weather station is 200 m far from to the catchment outlet, and therefore it is deemed to be highly representative of the weather conditions of the area. The active length data come from field surveys carried out between April 2019 and January 2020 (Senatore et al., 2021). The visual field surveys consisted in walking along the river network, collecting GPS coordinates of the points where surface flow started or stopped.…”

“…In such circumstances, a permanent streamflow could be observed even in cases where the river network within the focus catchment is completely dry. If the active network length is null when the discharge is strictly positive, Equation needs to be replaced by the following formula (Senatore et al., 2021): $$$L=\left\{\begin{array}{ll}{\left(q-{q}_{0}\right)}^{b}\quad \hfill & \text{if}\ q > {q}_{0}\hfill \\ 0\quad \hfill & \text{otherwise}\hfill \end{array}\right.$$$ in which q 0 represents a threshold specific discharge, for which L = 0.…”