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Indices of sediment connectivity: opportunities, challenges and limitations

Land Use Change

With the increasing role that unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are playing in data collection for environmental studies, two key challenges relate to harmonizing and providing standardized guidance for data collection, and also establishing protocols that are applicable across a broad range of environments and conditions. In this context, a network of scientists are cooperating within the framework of the Harmonious Project to develop and promote harmonized mapping strategies and disseminate operational guidance to ensure best practice for data collection and interpretation. The culmination of these efforts is summarized in the present manuscript. Through this synthesis study, we identify the many interdependencies of each step in the collection and processing chain, and outline approaches to formalize and ensure a successful workflow and product development. Given the number of environmental conditions, constraints, and variables that could possibly be explored from UAS platforms, it is impractical to provide protocols that can be applied universally under all scenarios. However, it is possible to collate and systematically order the fragmented knowledge on UAS collection and analysis to identify the best practices that can best ensure the streamlined and rigorous development of scientific products.

Current Practices in UAS-based Environmental Monitoring

Template for high-resolution river landscape mapping using UAV technology

Human-induced landscape change is difficult to predict due to the complexity inherent in both geomorphic and social systems as well as due to the coupling relationships between them. To better understand system complexity and system response to changing inputs, “connectivity thinking” has become an important recent paradigm within various disciplines including ecology, hydrology and geomorphology. With the presented conceptual connectivity framework on geomorphic change in human-impacted fluvial systems a cautionary note is flagged regarding the need (i) to include and to systematically conceptualise the role of different types of human agency in altering connectivity relationships in geomorphic systems and (ii) to integrate notions of human-environment interactions to connectivity concepts in geomorphology to better explain causes and trajectories of landscape change. Geomorphic response of fluvial systems to human disturbance is shown to be determined by system-specific boundary conditions (incl. system history, related legacy effects and lag times), vegetation dynamics and human-induced functional relationships (i.e. feedback mechanisms) between the different spatial dimensions of connectivity. It is further demonstrated how changes in social systems can trigger a process-response feedback loop between social and geomorphic systems that further governs the trajectory of landscape change in coupled human-geomorphic systems.

A conceptual connectivity framework for understanding geomorphic change in human-impacted fluvial systems

Changes in morphometric meander parameters identified on the Karoon River, Iran, using remote sensing data

Geomorphic diversity in the braided-wandering Belá River, Slovak Carpathians, as a response to flood variability and environmental changes

Multitemporal assessment of coarse sediment connectivity along a braided‐wandering river

The paper evaluates the impact of river training works designed to address problems associated with flooding on the braided-wandering Bela River in Slovakian Carpathians. This impact was investigated after the flood event in July 2018 on 11 river reaches where the river engineering and management intervention was applied. We analyzed its impact by spatio-temporal variations in river morphology (12 channel parameters) and changes in cross-section and hydraulic parameters (flow velocity, shear stress, stream power, W/D ratio) between pre- and post-flood management periods. The research hypotheses related to decreasing geodiversity in managed river reaches, a rapid increase in flow velocity during an extreme flood in river reaches where there is no sufficient floodplain inundation due to artificially high banks built by river training works, and increasing erosive force in the channel zone thanks to river management intervention were confirmed. The intervention in the braidplain area of the Bela River resulted in an undesirable simplification of the river pattern, loss of geomorphic diversity, loss of channel-floodplain connectivity, and disturbance and restraint of hydromorphological continuity. Identification of main conflicts of the Bela River management is important for clarifying the different approaches of stakeholders in the study area and aims to provide an objective illustration of their consequences. The presented analyses could help in future management issues as well as in the more critical decision-making process in vulnerable and rare braided river systems on the present when we are losing so many natural rivers by human decisions.

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Anna Kidová

Papers

Template for high-resolution river landscape mapping using UAV technology

Changes in morphometric meander parameters identified on the Karoon River, Iran, using remote sensing data

Geomorphic diversity in the braided-wandering Belá River, Slovak Carpathians, as a response to flood variability and environmental changes

Multitemporal assessment of coarse sediment connectivity along a braided‐wandering river

Hydromorphological evaluation of the river training impact on a multi-thread river system (Belá River, Carpathians, Slovakia).